TulpaforcEd
by Allicloud
Summary: It has been over a year since the Eds redeemed themselves in the eyes of the other kids, and life for the older, wiser Eds seems peaceful in Peach Creek. That, however, all turns upside-down when Edd finds a strange silver trinket on the ground, takes it home to examine it, one night of restless sleep later, awakens to find a strange animal-eared girl fast asleep next to him!
1. Chapter 1

"C'mon boys, the weekend awaits! Who's up for pizza and movies at my place?"

The harsh trilling of the school bell heralded the end of another long and arduous school day at Peach Creek Junior High. The double doors swung wide as dozens of kids streamed down the steps leading to the main entrance. Trailing at the back of the crowd were three teenage boys, eagerly trotting out the door. At the front was a short, stout boy in a yellow and red jacket and blue jeans, his thin, slicked-back hair swaying in the breeze like tall grass. He grinned as he took a deep breath of the autumn air. For Eddy, there were few sounds more beautiful to his ears than the final bell of school on a Friday afternoon.

Not far behind was a rather taller and thinner boy, his hair hidden almost entirely under a black and white beanie save for a few stray hairs at the back and sides, dressed in a dark orange coat and purple shorts. Edd, or Double Dee as he was known to his friends, hitched his satchel up on his shoulder and followed Eddy down the path to the road.

"Now Eddy," Edd said, wagging a finger. "We really should get our homework completed tonight, and then have the rest of the weekend free for such things."

Eddy scoffed. "Oh please, everybody knows the best time to do homework is on the way to school on a Monday. Stays freshest in your brain that way, y'know."

"Makes sense to me!"

Trailing behind Eddy and Edd was a far taller boy, his ginger hair trimmed to a crew-cut, wearing baggy jeans and an equally baggy green jacket over a red and white striped t-shirt. His monobrowed face was adorned with a vacant grin as he absent-mindedly dragged his bag behind him.

"That's what concerns me, Ed," Edd replied with a chuckle.

As they followed the crowd of kids as they trailed off up and down the road to their neighbourhoods, Edd could not help but smile as he saw a few familiar faces. Rolf, a tall and lanky boy of indeterminate ethnicity waved to the three Eds as he trundled down the road on a tractor, no doubt breaking several road laws at once. Jimmy, a younger boy with impeccable blonde curls and an oversized retainer adorning his mouth, strolled past hand in hand with a red-headed girl in a pink tank-top and jeans, no less than Ed's younger sister Sarah. They swiftly dodged out of the way as a bicycle whizzed past, driven by a muscular boy in a red baseball cap, horn honking as he went. On the back of his bike, arms firmly wrapped around his waist, was a very attractive blonde girl.

"Hey Dorky, got any plans for the weekend?" the boy asked with a grin.

Eddy replied, "Nah, nothing doing Kev, what about you?"

The boy, Kevin, reared the bike back into a standing wheelie. "I'm heading over to the next town, apparently they just opened up a wicked skate-park, so Nazz and I are gonna test it out."

"Hey, if you wanted a skate-park, you could've just asked us and we could set one up for ya," Eddy replied, hands on his hips in mock-indignation. "We wouldn't even charge ya to use it!"

The girl, Nazz, giggled. "Well that's sweet of you dude, but... well, no offense but if it was built anything like your old scams, I think I'll pass."

Eddy shrugged. "Ehh, suit yourself. Lemme know what it's like there, maybe I'll try it out sometime. Maybe even meet some cute skater-gals while I'm there too."

As Kevin and Nazz drove off down the lane, Edd chuckled to himself as they went. To think, a mere few years ago Kevin and Eddy would never even dream of having a conversation as civil and friendly as the one he just witnessed.

It had been a long time since the Eds had attempted their 'ultimate scam', a scam so overly ambitious that its inevitable backfire had been enough to send them fleeing for their lives out of their cul-de-sac neighbourhood, all the kids in the cul-de-sac hot on their heels and out for revenge. In hindsight Edd realised that their escape plan of hiding out at the home of Eddy's older brother was a ridiculously dangerous plan. But after having finally met Eddy's older brother, and seeing what a, for lack of better terms, psychopath he was, he felt he had an idea of just how terrified Eddy was at the prospect of returning home to face their neighbours after what they did.

But in the end, mature heads prevailed and Eddy was able to finally admit his tragic reasoning for all the scams, cons and ridiculous get-rich-quick schemes. And when the other kids heard it from his own mouth, they found a new sense of respect for the three boys. They had all been on good terms ever since.

"Man, how did Kevin get so lucky?" Eddy wondered aloud as they watched him and Nazz ride out of sight. "Captain of the football team, and dating the hottest girl in school? It ain't fair, I tell ya."

Edd jogged a bit to walk alongside Eddy. "Now Eddy, these things take time. I'm sure you'll find the girl for you all in good time. Perhaps after you graduate?"

"Yeah, you might be right there Double Dee," Eddy replied. "Once we're in middle-school, we'll have a whole new crowd of smokin' hot ladies to lay the charm on."

Ed nodded. "Charmin' Marvin will rise again!"

Eddy playfully nudged Edd "Who knows, maybe we'll even find the girl willing to put up with you, egghead!"

"There's nothing wrong with having an intellect, Eddy!" Edd replied, nudging back. "Not that you'd understand."

The three boys laughed as they walked down the road towards the cul-de-sac.

"So sockhead," Eddy said, referring to the beanie atop Edd's head. "You in for the movie night? It's a safe bet Ed's on board."

"All aboard and ready to cast off, Cap'n," Ed quipped, giving a clumsy salute.

"I'm sorry gentlemen, but I must decline. As I said before, homework takes priority, then I'll be free all weekend for whatever you have planned."

"Whatever," Eddy said with a roll of his eyes. "I guess it'll just be me and Lumpy here then. No biggie, that means cheesy monster movies courtesy of Ed and a whole lotta riffing from yours truly."

"Come on Eddy!" Ed shouted as he took off down the sidewalk. "I just got the new Killer Confederates movie in the mail this morning, the sixth in the series. The South rises again, from beyond the grave!"

Edd rolled his eyes. How someone was able to make not one, but six movies based around the concept of undead Confederate soldiers was beyond him.

"Hey, wait up Ed!" Eddy cried as he ran after him, leaving Edd to walk the remainder of the way home on his own. Not that he minded. As much as he loved spending time with his two closest friends, a bit of peace and quiet was always nice after a long day of studying. it allowed him a moment with his thoughts.

That said, however, he found himself dwelling on what Eddy had said earlier, about finding the girls just for them when they reach middle-school. In the past year it seemed that Lady Love had been rather busy in the cul-de-sac. Kevin and Nazz had officially become an item and had been going steady almost six months at this point, and Sarah and Jimmy had recently progressed their relationship beyond a simple childhood friendship, quashing quite a few rumours and speculations about Jimmy's preferences. Even Rolf had received a letter from his relatives in the Old Country (Wherever that may be) telling him of a very nice young lady from a neighbouring farm who was interested in him, and the two had been penpals ever since.

But for the three Eds, Lady Love had apparently chosen to pass over them once more. The only romance they had seen was the same amorous onslaught from Lee, May and Marie Kanker, the trio of trailer-park girls who had apparently make it their life's goal to torment the Eds for life. However, since the incident with Eddy's brother, even they had let up somewhat, reducing their typical persistent pursuit to mere teasing. Edd had to admit, as much as he loathed and feared Marie, he did rather miss the attention, as in-his-face as it had been.

As he mused, his attention wandered. His feet were practically on autopilot as he walked, deep in thought. They knew the sidewalk well after so many years walking to and from school, so that he could remember every crack, every dandelion sprouting up between the pavement slabs. But today, his feet found something they were altogether unprepared for. Edd stumbled and staggered as he felt his feet tangle up in something, and he whimpered as he fell forward, flat on his face.

Pulling himself up off the concrete, he rolled over on his back, rubbing his scraped forehead. He had a small cut, thankfully nothing serious, though a small red stain came away on his hand. He would have to put some antiseptic on that when he got home.

"What on earth was that?" He asked aloud to himself as he sat up, looking down at his feet to see what he had become entangled in.

It appeared to be a cord, about a foot and a half in length, strung with alternating red and black beads. At one end there was a small silver charm in a vague human shape, and at the other end a small silver cylinder, like a smaller version of the plastic tubes camera films used to come in. As the string swung in the breeze, he could hear something faintly rattling inside.

"Hmmm, what is this?" Edd disentangled the string from his legs and held it close to examine it. It was quite unlike anything he had ever seen. The closest similarity he could think of was a Catholic rosary, but he had never seen one that was just a straight string and not a loop, and certainly not one with the strange silver charms hanging from either end.

"It looks far too well-made to just be garbage," he said to himself. "Some poor individual must have dropped it, maybe one of the other kids at school."

He coiled it up into a small bunch and tucked it in his jacket pocket. "You can come with me, you curious little thing. I'll find your owner tomorrow, don't you fret."

Suddenly, he caught himself and got to his feet. "Oh wonderful, as if talking to myself wasn't enough, now here I am talking to inanimate objects!"

"Hello, I'm back!"

A short leisurely walk later, and Edd was pushing open the front door of his home. Inside the humble house was unlit and completely silent, no sign of life to be seen. For any other child this would probably be a cause for concern. For Edd, however, it was family life.

Even as a young teenager, Edd's parents had always been the hard working types. His mother was a live-in carer, and she was currently working with a client a few neighbourhoods over, and his father, being the most multilingual employee at his office, was frequently away on business trips. And with Edd getting older, his parents had become more lenient for how much they would leave him home alone. While he appreciated how much trust his parents put in him, Edd could not deny how lonely it made his household. If it weren't for his ant-farm and the spiders he monitored in his garage, he would have next to nobody to talk to at home.

Heading into the kitchen, Edd opened the fridge and pulled out a few vegetables and a jar of sauce and set to making a plate of healthy spaghetti for himself. As he ate, he got to work on his homework from that day. Or at least, he attempted to. For something other than quadratic equations and Pythagorean geometry was playing on his mind tonight.

Reaching in his pocket, he took out the string of beads again, uncoiling it and letting it hang between his fingers, the silver cylinder and figurine dangling before his face. Just what was this curious object? Some sort of jewellery? A collectible toy of some kind? A lucky charm?

He shook his head like a dog shaking water from its fur. "Come now Eddward, you're getting distracted! The curio can wait until after dinner and study."

He rolled up the string again and replaced it in his pocket, and focused his mind on his work and his dinner.

Hours later, his dinner and his homework completed, Edd sat at his desk in his bedroom, casually flipping through a book when his mind returned to the strange artefact that sat in his pocket. Uncoiling it once more, he peered closely at the cylinder. A hairline crack at one end gave away a small opening.

"Aha, there we go!" Edd muttered to himself. Rifling through a drawer in his desk, he pulled out a tiny screwdriver, the sorts one would get as a prize in a Christmas cracker, and wedged the flat head into the crack. There was a faint click and the flat end of the cylinder flipped open.

Within the cylinder was a tiny rolled up piece of paper. Edd smiled in satisfaction as he unrolled it. It was similar to a sort of religious talisman or charm he had read about, where certain verses or 'magical' incantations would be written on paper and worn in lockets by the faithful. But while there was a short text on the paper, what caught Edd's eye was the image above it.

It was a peculiar geometric design, with a vague resemblance to a bunch of random letters smashed together into a form that was almost humanoid in its design. Beneath it was a short line of text, or rather, an equally random assortment of letters slapped together to vaguely resemble words.

"Beronit... Physcla... Fum?" Edd read aloud the strange text. "What on earth is that supposed to mean?"

He read the paper upside down, backwards and every other which way he could think of. He referred back to every foreign language he could think, modern and ancient, but nothing even came close to resembling the absolute car-crash of letters that was scrawled before him.

Edd shrugged. "I suppose it must have made sense to whomever this belongs to. Heh, perhaps when I return it to them they can enlighten me," he chuckled to himself.

"Ah well, no sense in dwelling on such strangeness, high time you were in bed, Eddward," he said to himself, stretching his arms high above his head. Switching off the light of his work desk, he rested the strange charm on the desk and changed into his pyjama onesie, slipping into bed ready for a well-earned sleep.

But sleep did not come easy for Edd that night. No matter the relaxation techniques, breath exercises or postures he tried, he just could not switch off his mind and go to sleep. All through the night that same nonsensical phrase coursed through his mind as if on an infinite loop:

"Beronit... Physcla... Fum... Beronit... Physcla... Fum...**"**

He tossed and turned in bed, his bedsheets twisting this way and that. The words streamed through his mind like some maddening mantra, refusing to be silent, somehow getting louder and louder in his mind.

"Beronit... Physcla... Fum... Beronit... Physcla... Fum...**"**

It was as if his inner voice had suddenly split into a dozen voices, a veritable choir of inner monologues, all repeating the same nonsensical phrase, shouting, screaming in his mind.

"BERONIT! PHYSCLA! FUM! BERONIT! PHYSCLA! FUM! BERONIT! PHYSCLA! FUM!"

Edd sat up in his bed, his head feeling as if it was about to burst. No matter how hard he held his throbbing skull, the words would not stop! He felt close to screaming aloud in agony…

When just as soon as it had started, it stopped. The mantra faded from his mind, and all returned to silence. Edd flopped back in his bed, sweat dripping from his brow, his chest rising and falling as he breathed heavily. His eyelids fluttered as relief gave way to exhaustion, and the veil of sleep began to overcome him once more.

Before he drifted off for the rest of the night, Edd could have sworn the swimming mists of sleep in his eyes formed a shape that was almost human, sitting before him. But he did not have long to regard it before he found restful slumber at last.

The shrill chimes of Edd's alarm clock stirred the boy from his dreamless sleep. Rubbing the grit from his eyes, he slapped the top of the clock to silence it. As his room came into focus, he peered around. Despite the strange events of the previous night, the mysterious words that plagued his mind, all seemed as it should be. His desk was still there, the strange charm sitting right where he left it.

"Oohh, what an odd night that was," Edd yawned. "I'm sure an extra few minutes will do no harm…"

He rolled over and pulled his blankets up to his chin, smiling contently, but rather than finding more rest, he instead found the perfect incentive to leap back, tumbling from his bed in shock.

Peeking up from over the bedside he saw lying there, fast asleep right next to where he was, a girl. And as he looked closer he took notice of three things that altogether startled him, even more so than the scandalous fact that a girl had been asleep in the same bed as him.

First of all, it was no girl that he recognised. She appeared to be his age, if not slightly younger, of slight build. Her short blonde hair reached her shoulders at the back of her head, with bangs framing her face and curling in by her cheeks and a short fringe swept to one side. Her mouth was curled into a slight smile in her sleep, gently snoring to herself.

Second of all, far more startling, she appeared to be completely naked. Mercifully, when Edd had jolted off the bed in shock, the blanket had been flung off of him and draped over her sleeping form, exposing only her head, shoulders and one arm. Edd noted with no shortage of curiosity that on the exposed arm, just below the shoulder, the girl had a marking almost like a tattoo, in a light blue colour. His eyes widened as he recognised the design as being the exact same geometric design as on the slip of paper he found inside the silver charm.

Third, and strangest of all, was that she appeared to have upon her head a pair of furry brown ears, pointed and tufted like those of a fox or wolf. There has been a recent trend of animal-ear headbands among younger girls in alot of fashion stores, Edd noted, too shocked by the strange turn of events to even speak aloud to himself. Perhaps she was one such girl?

And yet he could not see any band that the ears would be attached to upon her head. Nor could he see any sign of her real ears hidden under her hair. Gingerly he reached a trembling hand towards the left 'ear', in an effort to find out their means of attachment, when the girl stirred, faintly mumbling in her sleep. And the ear twitched and fluttered gently.

It was as if a pit had opened up and all of Edd's internal organs had fallen out, leaving nothing behind but a feeling of empty shock. He could feel the colour drain from his face, and any sense of rational thought gave way to what could only be described as a mental Blue Screen of Death.

"Th-they're…. Real… Those are r-real…" was all Edd could manage before he felt his legs give way beneath him and he slumped to the floor in dumbfounded disbelief.

Then the girl's eyelids fluttered open and Edd found himself staring into a pair of electric blue eyes. She smiled at him.

"Oh, hi there!" she said in a cheerful voice. "So you're my creator then, it's nice to meet you."


	2. Chapter 2

Imagine if you will the words 'What' and 'Who', if they were carved out of gargantuan basalt monoliths rising out of the primordial earth, then hauled across the world by a million-strong army of slaves to the highest peak in the world where they were erected before a wall of fire a mile long and hundreds of feet high, to be bowed before and worshipped by all the peoples of the earth.

That would give you a close approximation of the thoughts running through Edd's mind as he stared into the eyes of the strange girl that lay in the bed mere inches from where he had been sleeping.

"You... you're..." he stammered from his slumped position on the floor. "You're a... I mean, you're... real..."

The girl smiled at him. "Yeah, I guess I am now, thanks to you."

"I...I... th-this is..." Edd's brain felt as if it were drenched in sticky, stiff treacle, every neuron and synapse seized up by sheer confusion.

"Are you okay?" she asked, sitting up. "Why are you down there?"

As she sat, Edd glimpsed for a nanosecond the bedsheet slipping from her form, but saw no more than her clavicle exposed before, almost by pure instinct, he sat up and twisted around, facing the wall.

"It's okay Eddward, this is just a... just a dream, of course!" Edd mumbled to himself. "Yes, a dream, probably an expired tomato in the sauce from last night's spaghetti. Yes, that's it, it's just messing with your mind and making you think there's a... g-girl in your r-room... Just ride it out, maybe find some purgatives in the medicine cabinet, and this will all go away..."

"Umm, you okay?"

Edd froze in surprise as he felt a hand rest on his shoulder. Carefully, he looked up over his shoulder and saw the girl's face again, her electric-blue eyes staring into his with a look of concern. He tentatively reached out a hand to touch hers. it felt soft and warm to the touch, and altogether very real.

"This is real, isn't it?" Edd whispered, half to himself. "This is no mere hallucination or daydream."

The girl shrugged. "Well I guess that depends, what's a hallucination?"

Edd raised an eyebrow in confusion. "How do you not know...? You know what, it doesn't matter. Real or not, this is still absolutely absurd! I wake up in the morning and find a strange girl fast asleep in my bed, and nude, no less?! What is the meaning of this?!"

"How am I supposed to know?" The girl replied, "I've only existed less than a day!"

Edd paused. "Wait, what? A few hours, what do you mean?"

The girl giggled. "Well you should know, silly, you created me."

"What do you mean created? You can't just create people out of thin air, that's preposterous!"

Edd was still cautious not to look, but he felt the girl's hand leave his shoulder. "Okay look, I may not know much of... anything at the moment, but I do know some of how I came about. I'll tell you, but how about you get up from down there first? It doesn't look very comfortable."

"O-okay, I will, but first..." Edd felt his cheeks redden, turning to face the wall once more. "C-could you please put on some clothes? I feel rather uncomfortable being in the presence of a girl who's... exposed."

"What are clothes?"

Edd ran a palm down his face. This was going to take a while. "Well, it's what we wear on our bodies to cover up our modesty. See, like the pyjamas and cap I'm wearing right now, these are my clothes for the moment. And when I leave the house I'll change into another set of clothes beforehand."

"Oh, okay, I think I get it," the girl replied. "So where are my clothes then?"

"Uhh... I don't think you have any. I suppose you can borrow some of mine," Edd said, pointing over his shoulder to the dresser near his bed. "In the middle drawer there are some spare shirts, if you could put one on, please."

He heard the gentle creak of the dresser drawer being pulled open, and the sound of his clothes being rifled through. He cringed, he had just arranged and neatened that drawer the other day. "At the bottom of the drawer there's a large orange shirt, that should be an adequate fit."

After a few moments, he heard the girl's voice again. "Is it like this?"

Edd chanced a look behind. He breathed a sigh of relief as he saw that the girl was indeed clothed. It was one of his older shirts that one point, Ed had worn as part of a scam, and stretched beyond any hope of ever fitting him properly again. On his gangly frame it looked almost a size or two too big. On the girl, it hung loosely off her shoulders and sat just above her knee like some ill-fitted nightdress.

"Yes, that will do. Thank you," Edd replied, getting up off the floor. His knees still shook and nearly buckled, his composure not entirely recovered, but he was able to stagger to the chair at his workdesk, where he sat down hard and face the girl, who sat down on the edge of the bed. Edd's eyes were once again drawn to the two furry, bestial ears that poked up out of the girl's blonde hair. As she looked at him they twitched and twisted gently like those of a cat.

"So... you said you could explain where it was you came from?" Edd asked, at last finding some level-headedness. "You mentioned only existing for a few hours, what do you mean by that?"

She shrugged again. "Well, exactly that. I didn't exist until a few hours ago, when you created me."

"But how?!" Edd exclaimed. "I already told you, one cannot merely create another person from nothing. At least, not within the space of a few hours anyway."

"But you did," the girl nodded as she replied. "One way or another you made me exist. You thought me into being, I dunno how."

"That makes no sense!"

"Think about it, did anything strange happen yesterday?"

Edd paused for a moment. "Well, there was that... but no, it couldn't be.."

Turning to his workdesk, he found the odd little charm that he had found on the way home from school, right where he had left it. Holding it in his hand, he turned and showed it to the girl. "Do you recognise this? I-is this something to do with you?"

The girl leaned in close to peer at the string of beads. "Hmm... maybe. Was there something inside this part?"

She pointed to the silver cylinder at the end of the beads. It remained empty after Edd had prised it open and found the peculiar sheet of paper. He picked up the small sheet and showed it to her as well. "Yes, I found this rolled up inside. But I can't make heads or tails of it, it's like nothing I've ever seen."

"Well, seems like you did make alot more than just a head from it," she giggled. "As for a tail, I dunno, do I have a tail?"

She turned around and gripped the back of the shirt by the hem, but before she could lift it Edd shrieked, "NO! I-I mean, n-no I'm pretty sure you don't have a tail."

"Oh, okay. Hmm..." she sat back down and closely examined the design on the paper, the geometric form that almost looked like a jumble of letters, and the gibberish phrase written underneath it. "It does look familiar, somehow... Ah, so that's my name!"

Edd flipped the paper around to read it. "Your name? Where? Is it one of these words on the bottom here"

"No, my name is written as part of this right here," she said, pointing at the design in the centre. "Apparently my name is Sammie."

"But... how can you read this?" Edd asked in utter bewilderment.

The girl, Sammie, shrugged. "Not sure, but something about this picture here... I look at it, and I just know that that's my name."

"What does that mean?" Edd asked, now beginning to feel very overwhelmed.

"I dunno. I already told you, I'm only a few hours old, I'm just as clueless as you!"

Edd held his head in his hands and rested his chin on the workdesk, groaning in frustration. "This is too much..."

"I know it must be kinda confusing," Sammie said, "But it's the truth. One way or another when you were asleep you were able to think me into being, and I'm guessing this symbol had something to do with it."

"Well however it happened, it is certainly clear that you're no ordinary person," Edd replied, gesturing to the top of her head. "Those ears are evidence enough of that."

Sammie looked up at her pointed ears. "What do you mean? Are these not what you have?"

"Well no, I have human ears," Edd said, pointing to his own furless ears. "See? This is what normal ears look like on a human. Yours look more like the ears of some animal."

"Huh, interesting," She replied, stroking her ear with a finger.

"But we're still no closer to having any idea as to what you are," Edd said, shutting his eyes in frustration. "Or why you're here, for that matter."

"Do you not want me here?"

Edd raised his head up, looking at Sammie again. The look on her face was one of disappointment, emphasized by her drooping ears. He stammered, "I-Well, it's not that... I mean, I don't not want you here, it's just... well, this is all very strange. If it really was me who thought you into being somehow, it wasn't deliberately. I had no idea what that thing was or what that paper was!"

Her face tilted to the floor. "So, does that mean... I'm an accident or something?"

A pang of guilt twinged in Edd's stomach. He may have only met this girl mere minutes ago, but those words stung him more than they should have. It was reminiscent of a child finding out that they were the result of an unplanned pregnancy, or worse, an unwanted one. he could not help but feel sorry for her. "N-no, Sammie, I don't think that means that you're an accident... just more of a surprise."

"A pretty big surprise, judging by how you reacted when you woke up," Sammie replied, a smile slowly returning to her face.

Edd chuckled. "Heh, I guess so. But no, I would not call you an accident."

"So does that mean you'll keep me? I can stay?"

"Keep you?" Edd parroted. "What do you mean by that?"

Sammie shrugged. "Well you created me, right? That means I'm yours, doesn't it?"

Edd blushed at the words "Oh no no no, certainly not! One cannot 'own' another person. Maybe if these were the days of colonialism, but nowadays that sort of thing is very much frowned upon.

As for whether or not you can stay, that's another matter entirely…"

On one hand, while his parents were away for long periods of time, they would come home eventually. And when that happened, there would be quite a few altogether uncomfortable and difficult questions to answer. Not to mention the other kids in the cul-de-sac. Edd shuddered to think of the sorts of questions it would raise if they saw her in his house.

But then again, it would raise far more uncomfortable questions if he were to simply cast her out onto the street mere hours, supposedly, after her creation. Whatever would his friends think of him then, if they were to see him do something so cold and callous?

And as if to drive the point home, as he look up at her his eyes met hers again. Those big, electric blue eyes, filled with as much hope as they were with worry. He had known her for less than an hour, and yet, Edd found it difficult to dissapoint her.

As Eddy may say, he finally thought to himself, screw what the others may think! And as for his parents, he would cross that bridge when he came to it.

Edd sighed. "I suppose, as long as we're careful about all this, y-you can stay with m-"

But before he could finish the sentence, Edd found knocked back off his chair as he was engulfed in a tight hug. Sprawled flat on his back, he look up at Sammie, the strange animal-eared girl who had apparently existed for mere hours, who lay on top of him, her arms wrapped around his middle, looking down on him with a smile.

"Oh, thank you thank you thank you!" she exclaimed, squeezing him tight.

Edd awkwardly placed a hand on her shoulders. Well, this was certainly an interesting way to start the day.

His hand moved upwards to gently pat her on the head. One of her ears was perfectly positioned to tickle the tip of his nose. He gently tried to move it away with a finger, and felt the soft, velvety fur that covered the outside, growing to short tufts at the tip.

Sammie squeaked as his finger touched her ear. "Yeek! H-hey, careful, that felt funny!"

"Sorry!" Edd quickly withdrew his hand, awkwardly letting it hang a moment before finally letting it rest on her back again. As he did so, however, he realised that, as she had leapt at him, the old shirt she was wearing had evidently ridden up past her legs.

Blushing profusely, he scrambled out from underneath her and got to his feet, making a point to look anywhere but at her. "Ahem, yes, well, first things first, we'd better find you some proper clothes to wear."

But where? He was not entirely comfortable with her wearing his clothes all the time, least of all due to the questions that may raise if she was ever seen with him. His mother's clothes would be far too big, and besides, she would go into absolute conniptions if she ever found out a stranger had been wearing her clothes. Sarah's would be too small, and she was definitely not someone he could trust to keep her mouth shut. And the Kankers were completely out of the question. But who else then?

Then an idea struck him. An altogether foolish and perhaps desperate idea, but it was the best he had. "Excuse me a moment, Sammie. I have to make a phonecall."

Elsewhere in the cul-de-sac, a spread of fresh fruit and a bowl of Cereal sat on the kitchen table. Nazz yawned and rubbed the sleep from her eyes as she sat down to a hearty breakfast, having gotten up early to get some jazzercise in before heading out with Kevin that morning.

She was less than a mouthful into her Cereal, however, when the phone rang. Gulping it down, she got up and picked up the receiver from the dock on the wall.

"Hello?"


	3. Chapter 3

A cool morning breeze blew through the cul-de-sac. The first cars were pulling out of their driveways as the breadwinners of each household headed off to their jobs for the day, while their children enjoyed a lie-in that Saturday morning. Well, most kids anyway.

Nazz yawned as she strolled across the asphalt circle in the centre of the cul-de-sac as she heeded an altogether strange call from a boy who would very rarely even speak to her, let alone ask her for help. Reaching her destination, she knocked on the door, absent-mindedly neatening her hair as she waited for a response.

The click of a bolted lock rewarded her patience as the door opened a crack, and Edd peered out.

"Ah g-good morning Nazz," Edd muttered as his eyes met hers. "I'm glad you came. "

Nazz smiled. "No problem dude, just lucky for you I was already up. So... What's up, exactly? You sounded like, kinda on edge on the phone. Come to think of it, I don't think you've ever called my house."

Edd held the door open and bade her inside. "I didn't know who else to ask. Tell me, did anyone see you come here? Anyone at all?"

Nazz stooped down to take off her shoes. "Uh, no I don't think so. A couple cards were pulling out of their drives but I doubt they noticed me. Why?"

"I'd rather that, for the time being, as few people know about this as possible."

"About what? Is everything okay Double Dee?" She noticed that Edd had not even so much as changed out of his pyjamas.

Edd rubbed the back of his neck. "Well... To be perfectly honest, no. No things are not okay. Earlier this morning I woke up with a... Well a rather unexpected surprise."

Nazz stared blankly at Edd, still not entirely sure where this was going. "Oookay... So what was it?"

"Well, when I woke up, I... Well, there was..." Edd stammered. "You know it's probably best if you see for yourself. Follow me."

Edd turned and headed for the stairs, leaving a thoroughly confused and rather uneasy Nazz. "Oh, and if you could put on those slippers in the porch please, Mother and Father detest people wearing outdoor shoes in the house."

Moments later, Nazz followed Edd up the stairs, a pair of fluffy bunny-slippers on her feet. Edd awaited her outside the door to his room.

"Right through here, please."

"Wow Double Dee, where's this forwardness coming from?" Nazz giggled, waggling her eyebrows coyly at Edd. "You do know me and Kevin and been a thing for like, a year now, right?"

Edd blushed furiously. "Nazz! Y-you know I would never… of course I know you and Kevin are together now… L-look, I'm getting sidetracked, the point is, the thing I need your help with is in here."

Nazz looked at the door, and then to Edd. "Uh huh… And only I can help you with it, right? Not even Ed or Eddy?"

"I know how questionable this all seems," Edd replied. "But I can assure you I have no ulterior motives. I just need you to trust me, please."

Nazz looked over Edds face for any hints of his intent but all she could read was desperation and anxiety. Whatever this was had Edd shook up pretty bad.

She sighed. "Okay Double Dee, I trust you. Let's see this… Surprise. But I'm warning you, the instant this starts looking sketchy…"

"I know, Kevin will no doubt have my proverbial guts for garters."

"No, I will," Nazz replied, emphasising her words with a crack of her knuckles. "I've been doing Jiu Jutsu for two years now."

Edd gulped. "Indeed."

With a shaking hand, he turned the doorknob and ushered Nazz in. She entered, looking about the room as she did.

"Diggin' your room, very neat and tidy. Alright, so where's this…"

Her words caught in her throat as her eyes fell upon a female figure she did not recognise, seated on the edge of Edds bed. She appeared to be a girl a year or so younger than Edd, with blonde hair that fanned out at the back, with a short messy Fringe at the front that curled into bangs at the sides. She was dressed in what appeared to be one of Edds signature orange t-shirts, albeit stretched out to the point that she could wear it as a relatively modest and baggy dress, and apparently nothing else. She sat back, her legs hanging over the side of the mattress, humming quietly to herself, bobbigg her head this way and that. And that bobbing drew Nazz's eyes to the girls strangest feature: what appeared to be a pair of furry brown animal ears sticking out the top of her head, just behind the bangs.

The girl looked up as Nazz stopped in her tracks and smiled. "Oh hi! Do you and Edd know eachother? I'm Sammie, Edd created me. Its nice to meet you."

Nazz could barely find the mental capacity to finish her question.

"... Surprise?"

"Okay, so there are, like, a billion and one questions in my head right now, but I guess the biggest are who is she, what is she doing in your bedroom dressed in one of your shirts, and what are those things on her head?"

Edd sighed as he paced back and forth in front of Nazz, who was now seated at his desk nursing a glass of water Edd had gotten for her to ease her shock. Sammie, meanwhile, was wandering around the room, looking over everything with curious wonder.

"Well to answer your questions, first of all her name is Sammie, and to be perfectly honest I have no idea who she is or what she is. Because going by those… ears of hers, I question whether she is exactly human."

"So those are actually real ears then? Not like, some sort of hair ornament?" Nazz asked.

Edd shook his head. "Not unless they make ornamental animal-ear headbands that react to touch. And to answer your second question, I'm also at a loss. This morning I woke up and there she was, fast asleep next to me in bed!"

"She said something about you being her 'creator' or whatever, what did she mean by that?"

Edd scratched his head. "It makes no sense, but she claims that, somehow, I thought her into existence. As if one second she didn't exist, and then she did!"

"You're right," Nazz replied. "That does make no sense."

"But I have no other explanation, so for now I guess I'll just have to go with it until I can figure things out"

"So she's only existed for a few hours… And the shirt?"

"Well, er…" Edd stuttered. "When I awoke, she was… Well, nude."

Nazz choked and sputtered into her glass. "Seriously?! Sheesh, no wonder you were so flustered on the phone."

Edd nodded, as he watched Sammie looking through his bookshelves, her eyes wide with wonder. One would almost think she had never seen a book before. Then again, Edd thought, if what she says is true, perhaps she hasn't.

"So, did you see anything?" Nazz asked.

Edds head whipped around to stare in shock at Nazz, face flushed red. "Nazz! You know I'd never… I mean of course not…"

Nazz laughed. "Oh Double Dee, I'm just messin' with ya! Everyone knows you're the safest boy in Peach Creek."

"Heh, thanks," Edd chuckled nervously. "I do pride myself on being as chivalrous and gentlemanly as can be."

"Good thing. I know a few kids around school that would see that as an opportunity to take a peek, if you know what I mean." Nazz said with a frown.

"Which, I suppose, brings us to why I called you here specifically, Nazz," Edd replied. "In part it's because I feel I can trust you to keep this between us and not gossip to the others. I'd much rather keep the number of people privy to this to a minimum."

Nazz shrugged. "Fair enough dude, I guess you'll tell the others when you're ready."

"But I have another small request from you. I confess, it may be a bit of an odd request, but might you happen to have any old clothes that you could bear to part with?"

He gestured to Sammie, who was currently watching Edds ant-farm with rapt attention." Its just that, she has no clothes of her own, and I'd rather not have her wearing my clothes forever. "

"That's a good point," Nazz replied. She sat in thought for a moment, before getting up and heading for the door. "I think I might have something, I'll be right back."

She headed out, leaving Edd alone once more with Sammie. He decided now was a good a time as any to get to know her better.

"Uh, d-do you like the ants, Sammie?" he said, joining her by the ant farm.

Sammie nodded enthusiastically. "Is that what they are? They're really cool. What are they doing?"

Edd pointed to the tiny tunnels dug through the dirt. "They're tunnelling to make their colony larger. And the Queen ant, this little one here, is busy hatching more ants. Last time I counted there were about six thousand, three hundred and fifty of them. Alot of mouths to feed."

"Feed?" Sammie echoed.

Before Edd could reply, he heard the door close downstairs. "I'll tell you later, it sounds like Nazz is back."

Indeed, as he spoke, the bedroom door opened again and in came Nazz, carrying over her shoulder a black trash bag that appeared to be filled to near-overflowing. "Talk about good timing! My mom had gathered up a bunch of my old clothes that either don't fit me anymore or I just haven't touched for, like, ages."

She put the bag down and gestured to Edd. "Okay Double Dee, out you go!"

Edd stared at her. "Erm, I beg your pardon?"

"Well, someone's gotta help your little friend get dressed and pick out some cute outfits," Nazz replied with a chuckle. "And no offense dude, but I doubt you're much of an expert on women's fashion."

Edd shrugged. "Well you've got me there."

"Hey Double Dee, what's all this?" Sammie asked as she rummaged through the bag.

Edd knelt down beside her. "These are some clothes for you. Nazz here was kind enough to let us have them. She's going to help you try some of them on, see what looks good."

Sammie turned to look at Nazz, a tiny gasp escaping her lips. "Really? These are… for me?"

Nazz smiled. "Sure, they're all yours. They were just gonna go to Goodwill anyway, so…"

But she found herself cut off as Sammie grabbed her around her middlein a tight hug. "Oh thank you so much!"

"Heheh, don't sweat it Sammie," Nazz said, awkwardly patting her on the head. She looked to Edd. "Friendly girl, isn't she?"

Edd chuckled. "It would certainly appear that way. Well then, I shall leave you ladies to it. If you'll excuse me I am in need of a refreshing shower and a hearty breakfast. Can I get you anything?"

Nazz shook her head. "Nah I'm good. Leave the door open a bit so we can call if we need anything."

He nodded as he headed into the hallway, gathering up his bathrobe, toothbrush and towel and a change of clothes as he went. Well, he thought as he headed to his bathroom, I can certainly say this is not how I pictured today beginning.

One cleansing shower and a bowl of granola and glass of orange juice later, Edd was refreshed rejuvenated and feeling much more at ease about the whole bizarre scenario. As he munched, he heard snippets of conversation float down from upstairs.

"... Okay, now hook the little clasps together at the back… Yeah, that's it, good job! Now we gotta pick a top and bottoms to go over that."

"How about this one?"

"Hmm, that's pretty cute. Maybe try one of these, they're called skirts."

"Ooh, I like this one! How does this look? Do you think Double Dee will like it? "

"Heheh, maybe for, like, the three seconds before he has a heart attack! I think maybe go for something a bit longer down the legs."

Edd blushed, trying his hardest to not imagine what sort of outfit Nazz and Sammie had put together just then.

"I like this one too, what do you think?"

"Might be a bit short to wear on its own. Let's try wearing it with… Oh man, I forgot about these! Here try this on."

"Hmm…. Ooh, I like these, they go out at the end, see?"

"They're called 'flares'. Yeah, that's totally a keeper, that look. Hey Double Dee, I think we're done now. C'mon in, see what you think!"

Edd got up from the table, tidying away the remnants of his breakfast as he went, before heading back upstairs to his room.

When he entered, he was greeted by a sight that brought him much relief: Sammie was indeed dressed, and rather nicely at that. The outfit she was in consisted of a short pink sleeveless dress, which would have indeed been rather high up the legs on its own, but beneath it Sammie was wearing a pair of blue denim flared jeans, and a pair of simple sneakers.

"What do you think Edd?" Sammie asked, turning on the spot to show the whole outfit. "Does it look good?"

"I think it looks totally cute, whadaya think Double Dee?" Nazz added, smiling at her handiwork.

For a moment, Edd found himself unable to speak. For the first time he was able to get a proper look at Sammie without having to avert his eyes. She was rather skinny, a bit shorter than him, with the sleeveless dress showing off the mysterious marking on her arm quite clearly. Her smile lit up her face, and her bright purple eyes looked back into his with childlike happiness. He could not stop the smile that crept onto his face.

"Edd?"

"Oh! Uh …" Edd finally found his voice again and replied, "Uh, yes indeed, it's a very nice outfit. Good choice, you two."

"And that's not all we picked out," Nazz replied, gesturing to the bed, whereupon there lay a variety of small piles of clothes, other ensembles Nazz and Sammie had decided on. A blue dungaree dress worn over a maroon t-shirt, a turquoise checkered blouse and black pleated skirt, a purple hoodie and jean shorts, a long denim dress and many others. Next to these was a warm-looking lavender coat with fluffy wool around the trim, as well as pile of socks of varying lengths and colours, a couple of basic nightdresses and pyjama sets and a variety of top and bottom undergarments, from which Edd was quick to avert his gaze from before he started blushing again.

"Wow, that's quite a sizeable donation, Nazz," Edd said. "Are you sure you can part with it all?"

Nazz nodded. "It's not a problem dude, like I said, if you don't take them they'll just go to Goodwill or a thrift shop or something. Anyway, that's pretty much everything you'll need, and I showed her how to put it all on, so you guys are all set!"

Edd smiled again. "Nazz, I cannot thank you enough for your help. I owe you a debt of gratitude."

"It's all good, Double Dee," she replied. "All I ask in return is to be allowed to visit and hang out with Sammie again, this was fun!"

Nazz headed out the door. "Anyway, I better get going. I'm meeting Kevin so we can check out that awesome skatepark he found."

Edd followed. "I'll see you out. Uh Sammie, wait here if you please."

Sammie waved. "Okay, goodbye Nazz, it was nice meeting you! Hope to see you again!"

Nazz waved back, and she and Edd headed down the stairs to the front door. Edd, ever the gentleman, opened the door, allowing Nazz out. "Thanks Double Dee."

"And thank you to you too, Nazz. And please, anytime you want to visit Sammie, you have only to ask. Just…"

"I know, don't let anyone else know, I gotcha," she replied. "And one more thing."

"What's that?" Edd enquired.

Nazz leaned in closer. "Take care of her. If she's telling the truth about having only existed for, like, a few hours, then she's probably not exactly gonna be very street-smart, or people-smart for that matter."

Edd nodded. "I'll do my best."

"And I would warn you to not even think of taking advantage of her naivety, but I know you're not that kinda dude," she continued. "You're a nice guy, Double Dee, and I know you'll make her happy."

Edd chuckled. "You almost make it sound as if she and I are a couple or something!"

"Ehh, give it time, who knows what'll happen!" she said with a wink as she went out the door and started down the front walk. "See ya Double Dee!"

Edd stared as she went. "What did she mean by that, I wonder?"

He shrugged and turned to go back in, carefully glancing about the cul-de-sac beforehand, to make sure nobody else saw his exchange with Nazz. Satisfied that they had not been seen, he headed inside and closed the door.

So what now? His whole morning had been rather thrown for a loop with Sammies appearance, and Nazzs visit did not help matters. What could he do to help get back into the swing of his morning? With Eddy and Ed having their movie marathon the previous night no doubt they'd be fast asleep for another few hours.

He spotted the last few remnants of his breakfast that he had left on the counter in the kitchen. It was then that he had an idea.

Heading upstairs, he returned to his room. "So Sammie," he said to her, finding her examining his ant farm again. "You were asking about 'feeding' earlier were you not?"


	4. Chapter 4

There exists a famous anthropological study, entitled 'Shakespeare in the Bush', in which an anthropologist relates their attempts at telling the story of Hamlet to the Tiv people of West Africa. You, dear reader, are encouraged to read it for yourself, but to save time I can summarise it with the general conclusion that it is really difficult to explain the plot of Hamlet to a culture that is okay with men marrying their dead brothers Widows, not okay with the youth taking action against their elders, and has no concept of ghosts.

But why, dear reader, do I bring this up? Because Edd had read the study before. And as he had attempted to explain the concept of eating to Sammie, Edd began to sympathise with the poor anthropologist.

After all, to teach a person to eat is relatively simple affair, since even from a few months old, human babies have the natural instinct to chew or suck on anything you put in their mouth. But what if said person was never a baby, and thus never took the time to gain such instincts, but still had the capability to speak, and therefore, question everything about it?

Surely you can imagine Edd's exasperation at this point.

"... So I move my jaws up and down to break down this food stuff after it's in my mouth," Sammie said through a mouthful of toast. "Then what?"

"Well then you have to swallow it," Edd replied.

"What's that?"

"It's when you move the food from your mouth, down your oesophagus to your stomach, in here," he said, gesturing to his belly.

"Ah okay, and how do I do that?" Sammie asked.

Edd moved to answer, but found that he had none. "Erm... that's... actually rather hard to explain, now that I think of it."

"What do you mean?" said Sammie, her ears cocked inquisitively. "Can't you just tell me or show me?"

"I... I guess I can do it to show you," Edd said, taking a piece of toast. "But I'm not sure how useful a demonstration it will be."

He bit into the toast and chewed it for a moment, before exaggeratedly gulping it down, making sure Sammie could see the movement of his neck muscles as he did so. "Does that clarify things any better?"

Sammie watched the demonstration with rapt attention. She nodded. "I think so. Let me try."

Chewing her mouthful of food once more, she strained and tensed her throat muscles as best she could. She was silent a moment, but then coughed and gagged. Her eyes bulged in shock and pain as she clutched at her throat, the colour draining from her face.

"Sammie!" Edd leapt to her aid without a second thought. Sammie mutely pointed at her throat, her other hand flapping in a panic. Edd moved behind her and slapped between her shoulder blades as hard as he could, once! Twice! And with the third strike, Sammie lurched forward and hacked up a clump of chewed mess that was once a mouthful of toast onto the tabletop.

Edd grimaced. That would require a thorough disinfecting of the table. But there were more pressing matters at the moment. "Goodness Sammie, are you okay?!"

"... I think so…" Sammie gasped and panted as the colour returned to her face. "Was… was that supposed to happen?"

"Heh, definitely not," Edd replied, breathing a sigh of a relief as he swept away the upchucked food with a napkin. "That's called 'choking', it's what happens when one tries to swallow somethin, but it gets caught in the throat."

Sammie nodded nervously. "Well… If that sort of thing can happen, I think I'll avoid this 'eating' concept for now."

Edd shook his head. "You can't do that Sammie, the body needs food to energise itself and provide nutrients. Then again, you're not exactly human, so would that still apply?"

"Actually, no" Sammie replied. "I may not know what I am exactly, but I don't think I need to eat anything. All I need to get by is interaction with my creator."

Edd looked at her in confusion. "Interaction? What do you mean by that?"

"You know, talking to you, doing stuff with you, generally getting attention from you. As long as you do things with me, that'll give me the energy I need."

"Huh, now that is interesting," Edd said. A being that thrives solely on attention. Could such a thing be?

I guess we will find out, if she is hesitant to try eating again, Edd thought. "Well I suppose that makes things easier for both of us."

He returned to his seat to finish his breakfast, when a cursory glance at the clock on the wall made him jump back up. "Good lord, 9.30 already?!"

Sammie jumped up as well. "9.30? What's that? Is that something bad?"

Edd paused a moment. Of course, she would not know how to tell time. "Not usually, but it does mean that I have taken far longer with my morning routine than usual. I should get going soon, before Eddy and Ed wonder where I am."

"What's Eddy and Ed?" Sammie asked.

As he cleared the table and put things away in the kitchen, Edd explained. "They are my two best friends. The three of us have known eachother since we were very young, and are seldom seen apart."

"What are friends?"

"Well… erm…" Edd hurried upstairs, Sammie following close behind. "A friend is a person that you feel particularly close to, someone that you like to spend time with."

"Like me?"

He stopped in his tracks. Turning around he saw that Sammie was looking up at him, her eyes hopeful, but anxious as well. Just like when she asked if she could stay.

It was odd. Edd had only just met this person a matter of hours ago. He still had no real idea who or even what she was, and her attempt at an explanation only muddled matters further. And yet in the brief time he had known her, they had talked, shared breakfast, all as casually as if they had known eachother for years. He had to admit, he did feel unusually comfortable and at ease in her presence, especially considering she was a girl.

Edd smiled kindly. "Yes, I suppose you are my friend now."

Her smile was so warm and bright it could have lit up a room. "Thank you, I'm glad." Her ears flattened shyly as a slight redness crept upon her cheeks.

As Edd felt his own cheeks becoming warmer, he cleared his throat and continued up the stairs. "Ahem, yes, well… As I said, I should probably head them off before they come here in search of me. It's probably best if you stay home, Sammie. I don't think I'm quite ready to explain this whole situation to them."

"Oh, okay…" Sammie muttered, visibly disappointed.

Edd felt terrible, having to leave her alone like this. "N-now, I promise I won't be out for long. Its just… Well, I'd rather show you to them when I understand all of this a little better."

Sammie nodded, not looking much happier about the situation. Edd sighed. Surely there was something to make her solitude easier.

Then Edd had an idea. "I've got it! Follow me Sammie!"

He hurried to his room again, Sammie following in tow. He closed his blinds, ensuring each slat was straight, allowing no room for any outsider to see in. "Now Sammie, I need you to listen. While I'm out, I need you to stay in here, and keep the blinds shut. And if you hear anybody knock on the door or any noise downstairs, under no circumstances are you to see what it is. Do you understand?"

Sammie nodded uncertainly. "Sure, but why not?"

"Because if anyone were to see you, it would lead to alot of very difficult and uncomfortable questions for both of us. Please understand, this is a very unusual and delicate situation you and I are in. So for now, please just stay in here and keep out of sight."

Sammie could see the seriousness in Edds expression. "Okay Edd, I'll do what you say."

"That said, however, you shouldn't simply wait and do nothing. Here," he said, beckoning her over to his extensive bookshelf. As she joined his side, he picked a book at random off his shelf and opened it. "Do you know what this is?"

Sammie looked closely at it. "Something with alot of writing in it, from what I can see. 'On… On the m-migration patterns of Monarch butter… Butterflies', it says."

"Correct," Edd replied with a smile. "These are called 'books'. They contain all sorts of information about a variety of subjects. As you can see, uh, have a rather vast collection," he chuckled. "While you are in here, they are yours to read. This will be a perfect opportunity for you to find out more about the world that you have been, erm, born into."

A smile crept back onto her face as Sammie looked from one end of the bookshelf to the other. "Really? I can read any of these?"

Edd nodded. "Indeed you can. After all, if you are going to be, erm, living with me, it only makes sense that what's mine is yours. Trust me, once you find a good book, the hours will simply fly by!"

Sammie grinned from ear to pointed ear as she grabbed a book from the shelf at random."'The Pacific Northwest: A Year of Photos'. I'll start with this one."

"Good choice," Edd said. "Beautiful wildlife pictures in that one. Well, it's probably time I was on my way. I'll see you later Sammie, I hope you have a wonderful day of learning."

Before he could turn to leave, he found himself wrapped up in another of Sammies tight hugs. "See you later, Edd."

He felt his face flushing yet again as he awkwardly draped an arm over her shoulder, desperately trying not to sneeze as the tufted tip of her right ear tickled his nose. "S-see you later Sammie."

Breaking off the hug, Edd gave one final wace before heading out to the hall, closing the door behind him. Donning his jacket, he grabbed his house keys from their hook in the hall and took a deep breath as he opened the front door.

Time to head back out. Time to pretend that things are perfectly normal.

But try as he might, as Edd strolled across the cul-de-sac towards Eds house, he could not shake the thoughts from his head. In a mere night, his understanding of reality had been rocked to its core. Just who is Sammie? Indeed, what is she? Where did she come from? How did she come about? Why was she here? All these questions and more buzzed about in Edds skull.

So much so, that he failed to notice until it was too late, that said skull was about to slam face first into the door.

WHUMPH!

Stars exploded in his eyes as Edd nursed a bruised nose and forehead. Groaning in pain, he rang the doorbell.

A clicking sound behind the door, and it swung open to reveal Sarah, somewhat grown since the incident with Eddy's Brother, but still diminutive compared to Edds lanky build.

"Oh, hiya Double Dee!" she said, a smile. "Lemme guess, you're here to see Ed?"

Edd nodded. "Indeed. I believe he and Eddy were having a movie night last night?"

"Yeah, and made a huge racket all night!" Sarah replied with a snarl. "They're in Eds room, they just got up about ten minutes ago."

She stepped aside to allow Edd in, and he nodded in thanks. "Thank you Sarah."

Heading downstairs, he heard familiar voices floating up from the basement.

"Here, pass me those chips… Eew Ed, you can toss these onion rings, they're goin' chewy."

"Yum, the best kind!"

Edd grimaced, but could not contain a chuckle.

He heard Ed gasp. "Be that who I think it be, Eddy McGee?"

Suddenly, the door of Eds bedroom slammed open and Ed leapt out, grabbing Edd in a rib crushing hug. "It do be! Hi double Dee!"

"Hello Ed," Edd wheezed as he wriggled his way free of the hug. "So, how did the movie night go?"

Eddy came to the door as well. "Ya didn't miss much with this movie. You see one zombie-confederates movie. You seen 'em all. And I'm startin' to feel like I really have seen them all at this point."

"But we saved you some snacks," Ed added, holding up a half-eaten bag of onion rings, their crunch long gone by now.

Edd politely pushed them away. "Heheh, thank you Ed, but, erm, I had a big breakfast."

The three returned to the bedroom, and Edd joined them in clearing up the leftovers and blankets set up in front of the TV.

"So sockhead," Eddy said. "That homework of yours better have been good for you to blow us off for it. You get it done?"

"Homework?" Edd echoed, looking up in confusion, before remembering. "Oh yes! The homework, yes, I did finish it. So worry not gentlemen, the weekend lies free before me for whatever skylarking or galavantry you have in mind."

Eddy looked at Edd uncertainly for a moment before grinning. "Glad to hear it! Can't have a weekend without our number-one egghead!"

"Not without the rest of him, either," Ed added with a dopey smile.

Edd smiled too. Just three friends hanging out on a crisp autumn Saturday. Things almost felt normal again.


	5. Chapter 5

Many things Edd saw in his day to day life served as wonderful reminders of just how much their lives had changed since the incident with Eddy's Brother. Their interactions with the other kids in the neighbourhood, the way Eddy carried himself, but one thing that stood out especially for Edd, was just how he and his fellow Eds spent their days together.

Eddy had long since given up his obsession with conning people out of quarters to spend on jawbreakers. Indeed, he now was granted a small weekly allowance from his parents that he was all too willing to share the bounty of with his friends. Most of the time. So now, rather than spending their days cobbling together elaborate scams, the Eds tended to pass the hours doing, well, what teenagers usually do: hanging out on street corners and alleyways, wandering the woods surrounding the cul-de-sac, or just chilling out together at one of their houses, cooking, playing card and board games, or watching TV. In short, finding whatever ways they could to entertain themselves.

However, every now and then, a glimmer of nostalgia would shine through, and they would cobble together some ridiculous setup reminiscent of their old scams, albeit more to amuse themselves than earn money. This was just such an occasion.

"How's yours looking, Double Dee?"

Today's project: scrapbuilt soapbox racers, made from whatever they could find in the junkyard. Eddy stood proudly beside his, waxing the old plastic rain-barrel that formed the main body of his racer. He gave a cheesy grin as he checked out his own reflection in the polished side of the barrel.

Edd, meanwhile, was hard at work attaching a pair of old tricycle wheels to his frame, a discarded baby-bath laying to the side, ready to be used as the seat. "Almost done, Eddy. I must say, today's scrounging of the landfills proved particularly fruitful for supplies. I found a whole box of unopened duct-tape rolls just thrown out!" He tutted, shaking his head. "So wasteful, honestly."

"Good news Double Dee. Your tape was not thrown away in vain. Look at me!"

Eddy and Edd laughed as they got a look at Eds racer. Evidently, rather than using bolts, screws or glue, Edd had resolved to using the aforementioned duct-tape to fasten his entire racer together. Including taping the wheels onto the chassis.

"Oh yeah," Eddy cackled. "Better watch out for this speed demon! Don't forget to add some racing stripes on the side with that electrical tape there, Lumpy."

"Ooh, good idea Eddy!" Ed replied cheerfully, taking up a roll of neon green electrical tape.

Eddy rolled his eyes and got back to his own racer. "So, Double Dee, any ideas where we can race 'em?"

"I do indeed Eddy," Edd replied. "As it happens I have a topographical map of Peach Creek at my house, and I know for a fact that an ideal slope can be found at the far end of the lane, heading towards the candy store."

"Seriously? C'mon Sockhead, gimme a real hill! Something that can give us some serious speed!"

Edd scratched his chin nervously. "Well, erm… II suppose there is the hill at the other end of the junkyard…"

Eddy jumped up. "Oh yeah! Where we built that roller-coaster for Plank! I wonder if that's still there!"

"I somewhat doubt it," replied Edd. "But are you sure? Don't you think that might be a tad… too steep?"

"Nah, it's perfect! The ultimate slope for a downhill racetrack! C'mon Ed, finish up your racer and let's get going."

Eddy and Edd looked over, and could barely stifle their laughter. Ed had indeed applied the racing stripes to his racer, but he had also made crude seat belts from the tape around himself. In short, he had taped himself into his racer, and sitting backwards no less.

"Ready for a day at the races, Eddy!"

Once their racers were completed, and Ed's wheels adjusted so they would actually move, within minutes they had pushed them all the way to the top of the hill that overlooked the junkyard. By this time it was already the middle of the afternoon, and the sun shone down at their backs.

Eddy peered over the edge of the slope, whistling in awe. "Looks pretty hairy, it's perfect!"

"Hmm, an intense slope indeed, Eddy," Edd replied. "B-but before we throw caution to the wind, we should test it, just to make sure the racers won't veer off every which way."

"So what can we test it with?"

A metallic clattering sound drew Eddy and Edds attention to behind them, where Ed had exhumed an old shopping cart from a nearby scrapheap. "How about this?"

Eddy pulled the cart over with a grin. "Perfect! Good goin' Ed, now in you get!"

He gave the tall boy a shove, sending him head over heels into the old cart. Eddy wheeled it to the edge of the slope, snickering to himself. "Ready lumpy?"

Ed nodded, and Eddy gave the cart a push. It trundled forwards slowly, gradually picking up speed until it hit the point of no return, and Ed and the cart were sent careening down the hill.

"Cleanup on Aisle Threeeeeeee!"

The cart barrelled down the hill at breakneck speed, Ed whooping and guffawing all the way.

"Atta boy Ed!" Eddy called, watching with malicious glee as the cart veered off the slope, speeding towards a heap of trash.

Edd pulled his hat low over his eyes. "I can't look!"

CRUMPH!

Peeping down at the aftermath, Edd gulped as he saw the shopping cart, overturned and wedged into the heap. Ed was stuck headfirst into the heap as well, an old truck tire jammed around his waist.

"Well," Eddy chuckled nervously, "I guess that's why the phrase 'this car handles like a shopping cart' is a thing."

Once they retrieved Ed from the bottom, they set up the soapbox racers and, albeit with some hesitance on Edds part, began racing eachother down the slope. Luckily, their racers were far easier to steer than the shopping cart, so aside from a few collisions at the bottom, things went smoothly enough.

Six rounds later and Eddy and Edd were tied at three wins apiece. "Alright Sockhead," Eddy said as he pushed his racer back to the top. "This one's the tie breaker! Whadaya say we make it a bet?"

Edd shook his head. "I decline Eddy, I am no gambler."

"Ehh, suit yourself. Well either way, this one's for all the beans, the eternal glory of victory!"

"Only as long as they're baked beans, Eddy. Garbanzo beans give me gas," Ed replied with a goofy grin.

Edd rolled his eyes as he got into his racer, strapping on an old discarded bicycle helmet. "Ready gentlemen?"

Eddy and Ed boarded their racers. "Bring it on, Sockhead!"

"Ready… Set… GO!"

The three pushed off their racers, and away they went!

Eddy was in first at the start, his racer zooming down like a bobsled. But Edds more streamlined design was making fast gains on the outside. The distance between them closed quickly, while Eds ramshackle racer trundled behind them both, Ed blissfully unaware that he was once again sitting backwards.

"On your left, Eddy!" Edd shouted as he sped past his friend. As sportsmanlike as he liked to be, Edd could not resist a wry grin back at his friend as he overtook him. If only Sammie could see him now, Edd thought to himself.

But this brief moment of cockiness was all it took to cost him his lead.

"Double Dee! Look out!"

Eds warning cry came too late. Edd felt a sickening jolt to his racer as he collided headlong with an old oil drum sticking out of the scrap heap. But his car did not stop, instead flipping over the drum, flying through the air upside down, giving Edd only just enough time to unstrap himself from the seat and curl up into a ball. He his the groud hard and tumbled down the slope a few feet, before skidding to a halt. A painful landing, but vastly superior to the alternative to remaining in the racer.

Dazed and in pain, Edd watched with horror as his racer flipped down the hill, front over rear, like some demented Jacobs Ladder, before crashing into an overflowing dumpster and smashing to pieces.

"Holy Schmoly!" Ed skidded his racer to a halt alongside Edd, hopping out to run to his side. "Are you okay Double Dee?!"

Edd dusted himself off, wincing with every movement. "Bruised and battered, Ed, but mercifully unbroken."

Indeed, aside from a pair of scraped knees, a bruise on his shoulder and a few small cuts on his arms and face, Edd was relatively unharmed.

"Hah, cool crash Sockhead!" Eddy called as his racer reached the bottom of the hill. "Looks like I take home the final win!"

"Purely by my own misfortune, but yes, I suppose so," Eddy replied as he and Ed joined him at the bottom. "I'm quite alright, by the way, thank you for asking."

Eddy shrugged nonchalantly. "Ehh, I knew you were fine. I've seen you bounce back from way worse before."

Edd dusted himself off once more. "Well be that as it may, with my racer out of commission I think I'll take this time to return home for the evening. You may continue if you like gentlemen, but I will bid you good evening."

Eddy shrugged. "Yeah, it is starting to get a bit late, and my parents want me home for dinner."

"I'll come with you Double Dee," Ed said, putting a friendly arm around Edds shoulders. "My mom is working late, so dinner is still a few hours away for me."

Edd flinched with a mix of pain and terror. The last thing he needed was Ed or Eddy coming to his house and discovering his unusual house guest. He quickly slipped out from under Eds odorous arm. "Erm, as much as I'd like the company, I'd, uh, much rather have an evening to myself thank you. After that crash, my body is crying out for a soothing soak in the bathtub."

"Aww, but Double Dee," Ed groaned. "Sarah has Jimmy over tonight, and last time he and Sarah said they were gonna use me to practise his makeup next time he was over!"

"I'm sorry Ed, but… But I am in no condition to be a decent host tonight. Perhaps another time, good day gentlemen!" With that, he waved and began limping the walk back to the cul-de-sac.

Eddy frowned as he watched Edd leave. "Hmm. Call me crazy, but that almost felt like Double Dee was blowing us off there. Hey Ed, that seem weird to you?"

Ed peered after the retreating figure of Edd as well for a moment, but shrugged. "Oh no way, he's always worn that hat."

Eddy rolled his eyes. "Eh, it's probably nothing. Welp, looks like it's time for you to head off to get your facial done there Ed."

Ed whimpered, "Oh no, say it ain't so! I don't want my eyebrow to be on fleek!"

"Sorry lumpy," Eddy replied, as he too headed towards the exit. "You just gotta grit your teeth and bear it. Then again, maybe a bit of contouring will do that mug of yours some good!"

By the time Edd limped into the cul-de-sac, the sun was beginning to sink low in the sky over Peach Creek. Most of the neighbourhood kids had returned to their houses for dinner, giving Edd a peaceful walk home without any questions about his battered appearance.

He unlocked the door and entered, flicking the light switch in the main hallway. Putting his key back on its hook, he breathed a sigh of relief as he saw no other keys on the rack. He still had the house to himself.

Well, almost to himself.

"Sammie? I'm home."

Edd cautiously pushed the door to his bedroom open and peeked inside. He smiled at the sight that greeted him.

There was Sammie, seated on the floor, her legs stretched out before her like an old doll, a dozen books scattered about her. She was attentively reading a thick book that Edd recognised as an in-depth book on the subject of state parks, complete with gorgeous full-colour photographs. But the moment she heard his voice, Sammie twisted around to face him, a huge smile filling her face.

"Edd! You're back!" she said as she sprung to her feet, grabbing Edd in a tight hug.

Edd winced, grinning through the pain as she squeezed his aching body. "Glad… Glad to be back."

Sammie looked up into his face, her smile fading a bit. "You okay? Your face looks different, it's got all these new markings on them."

Edd gently broke off the hug. "I'm quite fine thank you Sammie. I just took a bit of a tumble while I was out with Eddy and Ed. It hurts a tad, but I'll be alright."

"Hurt? What's that?" Sammie asked, stepping back.

Edd walked over to his chair and gingerly sat down. "Oof, that's better… Hurt? Hmm, how can I explain it… To hurt is when something happens to your body that makes it feel bad. It's a way for your body to let you know that something is wrong. In my case, because I fell down a hill, and bumped myself rather badly."

Sammie gasped. "Oh no, you don't feel good? What can you do to feel good again?"

"Well, in my case, I plan to have a nice relaxing bath, followed by some dinner. Honestly I'm probably just more messy than hurt."

"Is there anything I can do to help? Should I have this bath with you?"

Edd squeaked with surprise, his cheeks flushing at the thought. "Th-that won't be necessary, thank you! Mutual bathing is something best reserved for those who are… very close, shall we say. But after my bath, perhaps you could tell me about what you've read today."

Sammies ears perked up with delight. "Ooh, good idea! I read about lots of stuff while you were out. I'm still not super good at reading, but I managed to read lots of books."

"So I saw," Edd replied as he gathered his bathing supplies, along with a fresh change of clothes. "Now, if you will excuse me, I'm going to have that bath now. I won't be long, and then we can set up dinner."

One very relaxing soak in a bath filled with Epsom Salts later, Edd emerged from the bathroom, his aching body soothed and refreshed and his scuffmarks washed off, in a fresh ensemble of his purple shorts and orange t-shirt. Returning to the bedroom he found Sammie waiting for his return, leading her downstairs to the dining room.

"Okay, if you can set the table, I'll see what I can put together for dinner," Edd said as he headed into the kitchen. "In the dresser on the side, if you can take two each of the forks, knives, spoons, glasses and plates, please."

"Sure thing Edd," Sammie said as she opened the top drawer. "Which ones are the forks?"

Edd smiled. Of course. "On second thought, perhaps I should show you which is which first, and you can do it next time."

He joined Sammie at the drawer and retrieved the cutlery. "So these pointy ones are forks, the flat long ones that are sharp on one side are knives, and the ones with the round bits on the ends are spoons. Up here these are called glasses, we drink beverages out of them, and under here we have plates, these flat round ones. And then we just have to arrange them like this on the table…"

After showing Sammie how to set the table, the two of them headed to the kitchen to prepare a meal of spaghetti and meatballs. Despite his offer to make a second dish, Sammie politely turned down the offer, and so Edd made up a single portion.

Sitting down at the table with a hearty plate of spaghetti, Edd invited Sammie to sit as well and tucked in. "So Sammie, what did you read about? Anything interesting?"

Sammie nodded enthusiastically. "Oh yes! I read about these things called butterflies. The book said that they start out as these little things called caterpillars, and then turn into butterflies, did you know that?"

Edd smiled. Of course he knew that, practically everybody over the age of eight knew about the metamorphosis of caterpillars to butterflies. But naturally this would be something completely new to someone like Sammie. And Edd would be lying if he said that he did not get a certain warm glow of pride as he listened to Sammie talk about the process by which caterpillars enclose themselves in cocoons, as if it were some fascinating obscure secret of nature. Few things were more satisfying to him than the sight of one learning about new things, and in particular, being excited to learn.

Even as he finished his meal and dished himself up a bowl of strawberry ice-cream for dessert, Sammie was still talking, this time enthusiastically detailing what she had learnt about the populations of white-tail deer that inhabit the vast parks and nature reserves of their state. The subjects flew thick and fast, from Roman comedies to the Water Cycle, to the history of the bicycle. Through it all, Edd sat in appreciative silence, allowing Sammie to speak, only speaking up when she asked for clarification about a topic. His smile never left his face as he watched this strange girl before him, this artificial being, learning about the world with all the enthusiasm of a child. He could think of no better word to describe the sight than… adorable.

So engrossed was he in hearing her describe all that he had learnt, that he took very little notice of much else, until the chime on the old grandfather clock in the living room struck nine.

"Good heavens, is that the time?!" Edd exclaimed. "Forgive me, I completely lost track of how late it is!"

Sammie watched him in confusion. "Is that a bad thing?"

Edd got up, hastily clearing away the dishes into the dishwasher. "Not necessarily, but I do prefer to be getting ready for bed by this time. Early to bed, early to rise, as the saying goes."

With dinner cleared away, Edd and Sammie locked the front door and switched off the downstairs lights and headed upstairs. Opening the closet, Edd retrieved one of his onesie pyjamas and began removing his socks before he paused. Slowly turning his head, he saw Sammie standing in the bedroom, watching him with curiosity.

"Erm, Sammie…" Edd stammered. "C-could I get a little privacy, if you please? I need to get into my pyjamas for bed."

Sammie jumped "Oh right! Like you were wearing this morning, right? Okay yeah, I'll go out while you put that on."

"Thank you."

"And should I get into some pyjamas too?" she asked.

"I suppose so," Edd replied. "Nazz left you some nightwear right?"

Sammie nodded as she went through the pile of clothes Nazz had left behind. "Yeah, she did. I don't know which one I should wear though, what do you think?"

She held up two outfits: one a sleeveless baby-blue nightdress with a yellow trim, and the other a pink and white vest-top and matching trousers.

"Well, nights are still quite warm, so I suppose the dress would be more comfortable, but you could go with whichever one you like more."

Sammie smiled, putting down the pyjamas and taking the nightdress with her as she headed for the door. "Well, if you think this will be nice, I'll try it. I'll be right back!"

Alone at last, Edd wasted no time in stripping down and slipping into his pyjamas, before heading to the bathroom to brush his teeth. Once he had returned, his trademark beanie replaced with anightcap, he called out, "Okay Sammie, are you dressed now?"

"I am, I'll be right in," came Sammies reply. She re entered the room, clad in the blue nightdress. It was evidently a little too big for her, hanging off her shoulders slightly, but all in all it looked perfectly decent.

Edd smiled. "Wonderful. Well, high time I was in bed, methinks."

He clambered into bed and switched off the lights, ready to snuggle down for a well-earned sleep. Then as his eyes closed, he felt the edge of the mattress shift and move.

Opening his eyes, he froze in surprise as he saw himself facing the very familiar sight of Sammie, lying on her side next to him on the bed, her smiling face turned towards him.

Oh yeah, he thought. I forgot about this.

"Something wrong, Edd?" Sammie asked reading Edds expression.

He stammered and stumbled, attempting to hide his face beneath the covers. "Erm, well… Y-you see, uh, it's… Well it's just that… It's not exactly… proper for a boy and a girl to… sh-share a bed like this…"

Sammie ears clocked in confusion. "Why not? We shared a bed last night, didn't we?"

"Well yes, b-but I didn't realise at the time, and… Well it's the sort of thing reserved for those who are… Ahem, very close, you see…"

"Aren't we close? We're friends, aren't we?" Sammie asked, now thoroughly confused. "What's the problem?"

Edd blushed, becoming very flustered. "W-well, it's usually people who are more than just friends, but, Oh dear…"

But if not here, then where? He thought to himself, where else could she sleep? His parents' room was off limits, and it would hardly be courteous to make her sleep on the couch or in a sleeping bag on the floor. Perhaps he could sleep there, and she get the bed? But then that would hardly be good for his back…

And then he saw it. There it was yet again. That look on her face. Her confusion giving way to anxiety, worry. Even fear. She was getting way too good at that. "Well, if you're not okay with it, I can find somewhere else to…"

"No, wait." Edd placed a trembling hand on her shoulder as she made to get up. "It's… It's okay. There's not really much other choice, so… II guess if… If you're okay with it, then…"

Sammies smile returned as she lay back down. "Thank you Edd."

It was only then that Edd noticed that while he was securely hunkered down under the covers, she was still lying on top of them. Gesturing for her to get up for a moment he pulled the blankets aside and motioned for her to lie down again. As she did so he pulled the sheets back up again, covering them both. From the little contented squeak she emitted, this was evidently quite comfortable for her.

"Well… goodnight then, Sammie," Edd said.

"Goodnight Edd," Sammie replied, closing her eyes. Within minutes she was fast asleep, her ears gently fluttering as she dozed.

Edd rolled over to face the other way, finding that any chance of sleep was eluding him. Instead he found himself dwelling on the altogether surreal series of events that had led him into this situation.

Jutt last night he had been studying a strange nick-nack he had discovered on the roadside. Now twenty four hours later, here he was, sharing a bed with a girl that was literally sprung from his very thoughts, who was now living with him.

Just what twist of fate had led his life to become to bizarre?


	6. Chapter 6

Edd stirred, his mind being pulled from the peace and silence of a dreamless sleep by the first rays of sunlight peeking through his blinds. His eyelids fluttered as he adjusted to the morning light. Another new day dawned, heralded by the dulcet tones of a gentle female voice.

"Good morning Edd."

He rolled over and smiled at the familiar voice. "Mmm... Ah, good morning mother... didn't expect you to be home... this morning. When did you...?"

Wait. His mother never called him 'Edd'.

His eyes snapped open, and any remnant of sleepiness was jolted from his being as he found himself staring at a familiar, purple-eyed face, mere inches from his own. Sammie smiled back at him as she too rubbed the sleep from her eyes.

_Oh. Right._ Edd had almost forgotten that all of yesterday had really happened. In the brief few seconds of him first awakening he almost believed he had dreamt the whole thing. But there she was, real as the hat upon his head, snuggled up under the blankets next to him. A surprise for sure, but not entirely an unpleasant one.

"Ah, yes, Sammie... G-good morning, forgive me, I... I guess in my drowsy state of mind I mistook you for someone else," Edd muttered as he got out of bed.

Sammie followed suit, stretching her arms. "Mmm, so that's a full night's sleep? I could definitely get used to that... Yeah, you called me 'mother' for a moment there. Who's that, another friend of yours?"

"Oh no no, quite different," Edd chuckled. "You see, people like myself don't just spring into existence like, well, you I suppose. Instead, we are grown and born from other people, who are referred to as one's parents, their mother and father. Every living being is a creation of another being that came before them."

"Ah right, so how does that work?" Sammie asked.

Edd grimaced. "Erm... well, through a process that isn't really an appropriate topic for breakfast time, shall we say. I'll explain the details another time. For now, however, high time for a shower, a change of attire, and some breakfast. If you can get yourself dressed, I'll meet you at the table downstairs momentarily."

Grabbing a fresh towel and change of clothes, Edd headed to the bathroom, where a warm, invigorating shower shook away the last of the proverbial cobwebs in his head. One quick change of attire later, and Edd headed downstairs to the kitchen table, where he saw Sammie waiting for him, once again in her pink dress and blue flared jeans combination. She was seated at the table humming quietly to herself. Once Edd had poured a bowl of Chunky Puffs and cut a grapefruit half for himself, he sat down opposite her at the table and dug in.

"Hey Edd," Sammie asked after a few moments silence.

Edd looked up, his mouth full of cereal. "Hmm?"

"So you've told me why food and sleep are important," she said, "But what about baths and showers? You've mentioned them before, but what are they, exactly?"

Edd swallowed. "Well, they are another part of keeping the body healthy. You see, throughout the day, one's body tends to get dirty, through a combination of one's environment, activity levels and suchlike. Dirt, dust, sweat, all these things cling to one's skin, and can build up over time most unpleasantly and lead to health problems. So, it's considered good form to wash oneself in water, either in the bath or under a shower, to clean these things off."

"And what do you do that?"

"There's no set rule," Edd replied with a shrug. "One is free to wash whenever one wishes. Some prefer the morning to wake themselves up, some like the evening as a way to relax. I myself strive for cleanliness as much as possible, so I will wash myself off whenever I get particularly messy. But I also like to have an invigorating shower in the morning, helps me wake up properly."

Sammie nodded, listening intently as if hearing some esoteric secrets of the universe. "I see... Sounds pretty cool. Maybe you could show me how sometime, I'd love to try it."

Edd sputtered into his Chunky Puffs. "Ah, yes, well... I would be happy to... instruct you on how to bathe yourself. I'm unsure as to whether or not you get dirty or messy, but it is a most pleasant experience."

Sammie nodded. She was silent for a moment as her smile faded slightly. "So, are you going out again today?"

Edd picked up on her drop in mood. "I'm afraid so. I promised Eddy and Ed that I'd hang out with them again today, and if I don't go it's likely they'll get suspicious and come looking for me here."

Sammie looked down at her lap. "Oh, okay... Should I stay in your room again?"

Edd nodded. "I'm truly sorry for this Sammie, I do wish I could spend more time here, but we can't have the other kids getting suspicious. But I promise, we will spend some time together this evening. Y-you can tell me about what you've learnt and read about again. You enjoyed that, right?"

Sammie nodded, her smile returning at the mention of the books. "Yeah, I really did. Okay, I'll pick out another bunch of books to read while you're gone! And you promise we'll talk about them when you come back?"

Edd smiled. "I promise."

"Thanks Edd," she said, beaming.

Once he had finished his breakfast, Edd cleared things up with Sammie's assistance, and grabbed his coat, eager to be on his way before anyone were to question his whereabouts. "I'll be back before dark. Remember, keep out of sight, please."

Sammie gave him a tight hug around his waist. "I will. See you soon, Edd."

Edd smiled at her affection even as his body seized up from her show of affection. _I may not be entirely used to this yet_, he mused, _but I could certainly grow to._

_Wait, did I really just think that?_

Shaking his head clear of such thoughts, Edd gave a friendly pat on the back to Sammie, gently freeing himself from her embrace. "See you soon, Sammie."

And with that, Edd grabbed his keys, gave one final wave and headed out the door, leaving Sammie alone once more.

Taking a deep breath of the fresh morning air, Edd sighed to himself. It pained him to see Sammie's face when he said he had to leave her alone again. _But,_ he reasoned to himself, _I cannot suddenly go days without seeing Eddy or Ed without them suspecting something is awry. She has only been around for two days, after all, we still need to be careful. I'm still not entirely sure I can trust her out and about just yet…_

_But Eddward_, another voice in his head reasoned, _she will have to eventually. You can't worry over her forever, she's not a little child._

_No, she's not,_ he rebutted to himself._ A child has instincts, reflexes, a basic sense of fight-or-flight. She barely even seems to have that! Whatever she is, she is quite unlike any person, human or otherwise, that I have ever seen._

He stopped in his tracks for a moment. _Then again, am I doing this because she isn't ready for the world? Or because the world isn't ready for her?_

_The bigger question is, _that other voice asked, _why do you care so much? You've known her for just over a day, and yet here you are protecting her and fussing about her as if she was your closest friend._

_That's a good point. _He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. Just what was it about her that made him want to help her and protect her so very much?

"Hiya Double Dee, what's up?"

Edd jumped, jolted out of his deep thought by another familiar voice. Looking up, he saw Nazz approaching him on the sidewalk, dressed in the figure-hugging leggings and crop-top of a jogger. "Oh, good morning Nazz. Forgive me, I was in deep thought."

Nazz giggled. "No worries dude. So, how are ya?"

"I'm quite alright, thank you," he replied. "Just on my way to find Eddy and Ed for the day. And yourself?"

"Morning run," Nazz said. "Gonna be meeting Kev for lunch later on. So then, how is your…"

She looked about fervently a moment before continuing. "... Your new houseguest?"

Edd nodded in understanding, taking a glance about as well. "She's doing well, thank you. She's at home at the moment, I've set her up with some of my books to keep her entertained."

Nazz smiled. "Good idea. Keeping her outta sight for now, huh?"

"Exactly," he replied. "Once she is a little more comfortable with life, I'll start thinking of ways we can get her out of the house. I must admit, I did feel rather guilty about leaving her alone this morning."

"Aww, getting attached already, are we?" Nazz nudged him playfully. "That's so sweet, I didn't think it'd be this soon."

Edd blushed, but chuckled right along. "I can assure you it is nothing like that! But I am starting to see her as a good friend, not to mention a guest in my home, so it's only natural I feel a little guilty about leaving her alone."

Nazz chuckled. "Sure, just a good friend. Whatever you say, Double Dee."

Edd rolled his eyes. Then, he was struck by an idea. "Say Nazz, are you free tomorrow evening?"

"Uh yeah, I should be, why?"

"Well, I promised Sammie that I would make up for not spending time with her today, and I can imagine that seeing you again would cheer her up greatly."

Nazz beamed. "Of course! I'd love to hang out with her again, I'll stop by your house after school."

"Excellent, I'll see you then! Now, you wouldn't happen to have seen Eddy or Ed this morning, would you?"

"Sorry dude, no idea," she replied.

Edd shrugged. "No matter, I'm sure I'll run into them before long. Well, until tomorrow evening then, Nazz."

With a wave and a smile, the two parted ways, heading off to continue their days.

Meanwhile, at this same moment, Sammie had already returned to Edd's bedroom, and was scanning through the bookshelf for today's reading. After extracting volumes on the subjects of trees of the European continent, the history of medieval Britain, and a surprisingly thick book all about the 'fascinating history, science and culture of the potato', she sat down on the carpet, flipped open the first book and began reading at her slow but steady pace.

Hours passed as she pored over the old Celtic lore surrounding certain kinds of trees, sitting with her legs stretched out once again.

She lay out on her front as she read the gruesome details of the Black Death Plague, and the violent history of the Peasants' Revolt of 1381.

She read with rapt attention about the history of the potato, which stretched as far back as possibly 2500BC, perhaps even millennia further. Believe it or not, dear reader, of all the books Sammie had selected today, it was the one all about potatoes that proved the most fascinating.

But as she read, she found her attention wandering. Through the window above her, she could hear sounds from outside. Birdsong in the nearby trees, the chatter and laughter of the kids as they gradually convened outside for a day of frivolity and play. Even the simple sound of the wind in the branches intrigued her.

"...No. I mustn't." She pulled her attention back to her book.

But once again her attention wandered. The sunlight through the blinds caught her eye, as it cast beams of dusty light across the room.

"Rrgh, come on, no!" she admonished herself, tugging her head down by her ears until her nose was almost touching the pages.

However, the sounds of nature from the window would not give up their enchanting spell upon her. "Hmm… It would be nice to see what it looks like out there…"

She turned away. "But you can see that in Edd's books! They have everything you need to know."

She turned back. "Not everything. Seeing it for real would be completely different."

She shielded her eyes from the window. "But Edd said I have to stay away from the windows. It's not safe yet!"

She got up off the floor. "But why? What's so bad about outside?"

She turned her back on the window. "I'm sure Edd will show us soon enough. I should just wait until then."

She peered at the window over her shoulder. The light from between the blinds beckoned to her. "But… I'm sure Edd wouldn't mind…"

She slowly approached the window, an arm outstretched. "... if I took just one little peek."

She reached out, slipping a finger under the cold metal slats of the blinds, and knelt down so that her eyes were level with the bottom of the window. Pushing upwards, she raised the blinds an inch, and put her eye to the hole.

She was enraptured.

Outside the window lay the world. A vast greyish-blue sky, spotted with clouds. Between the house Sammie sat inside and another opposite it was a stretch of black asphalt road, leading to the familiar asphalt circle of the Cul-De-Sac, which was lined on both sides with more houses. A second road crossed by the house, perpendicular to the one that led to the Cul-De-Sac, stretching downhill towards the high-street. And surrounding these houses and their picket-fence boundaries, were trees. Endless trees, their once lush green foliage turned to a crisp golden brown colour, the leaves fluttering in the autumn air. While the voices of children could be heard none could be seen, but Sammie caught glimpses of what she recognised as birds, fluttering from branch to branch and soaring high in the sky.

To any ordinary person it would look like little more than an average, quiet, suburban neighbourhood in autumn. But to Sammie, it was nothing less than all the beauty of the world laid out before her eyes. Within seconds of gazing through the crack in the blinds, she was enraptured.

So enraptured, in fact, that she failed to notice, as she slowly rose up from the floor, that her hand was resting on the pull-cord of the blinds. Until, that is, she moved to push herself up to standing, and instead yanked down hard on the cord, causing the blinds to fling themselves wide open.

Sammie shrieked and leapt back as the blinds flew open, exposing the window in a sudden blinding flash of midday light. But worse still, exposing the bedroom, and its covert occupant, for all the world to see. She ducked down on the floor, desperately looking for somewhere to hide herself before anyone outside saw her.

_The bed? No, that's in full view of the window._

_The desk? And hide behind what, exactly?_

_The corner below the window?_

"That's it!" she squeaked to herself, scrabbling along the floor to the corner nearest the window. But her hand slipped and she stumbled against the desk, jogging the pens and papers sitting atop it and knocking Edd's replica skull to the floor with a loud hollow clunk.

Now thoroughly rattled and feeling the chill of terror for the very first time, Sammie shoved herself bodily along with her legs until she slid into the corner, where she curled up into a fetal position, hands over her face, the hair behind her head and the fur on her ears sticking up in all directions.

Out on the sidewalk, Jimmy hummed to himself as he skipped out of the Cul-de-sac on his way to the candy store, when a movement in a house to his right caught his eye. Looking up, he saw nothing especially out of the ordinary, except in the upper floor window.

"Hmm, isn't that blind usually closed?" he mused aloud. Shrugging, he thought little of it and continued on his way.

"What did I do?!" she muttered to herself, her voice muffled by her hands. "I just wanted a look. Did I break something? Did someone see me?!"

Sammie rocked back and forth in the corner, too afraid to move for fear of knocking about something else, or worse yet, being seen through the window. "What's Edd gonna say when he sees this?"

She winced as she felt an unusual tightness in her chest, as if her insides were being twisted in knots. The more she worried, and the more she thought about how Edd might react, the tighter it became. Sammie pulled her hand away from her face as she felt a strange, warm dampness in the palm of her hand. Touching her cheeks, she felt a few stray droplets of water dripping down from her eyes. "Wha… What's happening?"

Was there something wrong with her eyes? What was this water meant to be? And why did her insides feel so twisted and wrenched up? Perhaps one of Edd's books held the answer, but they were on the far side of the room, and she still dared not move. And so she sat, curled up in the corner, trying her best to keep as silent and still as possible.

It was not until hours had passed, and she heard the faint sound of the door opening and closing downstairs, that she even dared budge a muscle.

The creaking of the stairs heralded Edd's approach. "Sammie? I'm back, I managed to get away a tad earlier than usual. Oh, and I come bearing good news!"

He opened the door to the bedroom, fully expecting to see Sammie seated once more with her pile of books. His excited and cheerful face fell when he saw that this was not the case.

"Sammie?" He turned and saw her, cowering in the corner by the window. "Heavens, Sammie, what's wrong? Wha…"

The window that, he now saw, was not covered by the blinds. "Egads! The blinds are up! What happened? Did anyone see you?!"

But Sammie did not respond. She stayed curled up in the corner, her face in her hands.

"... Sammie?" Edd crouched down beside her. "What's the matter?"

"Edd… I did something bad."

Edd looked at her with curiosity. "Whatever do you mean?" He reached out a hand to gently pull her hands away from her face, only to see with a pang of sadness that her face bore the telltale signs of tear stains.

"The… the window," she said, her voice meek and quiet. "I wanted to take a little peek. I knew I wasn't supposed to, but I thought if I was careful, I could do it without being seen… But I slipped and the thing covering the window came up, and I g-got scared and…"

"The window?" Edd echoed nervously. "Do you think anyone saw you?"

Sammie shook her head, rubbing her eyes. "I… I don't think so. I didn't know how to fix them so I ducked down and hid in the corner. I wanted to look in your books, see if there was a way to f-fix them, but then I started f-feeling really w-weird in my insides and… and then my eyes started leaking and… and…"

Edd could bear the sight no more, placing a soothing hand on her shoulder. "Now now, it's okay. As long as nobody outside saw anything, everything is quite alright. The blinds aren't broken, they're merely opened. Watch this."

Getting up, he tugged on the cord, and down came the blinds once more. "See? Good as new."

Sammie nodded, looking shyly up at Edd, her big puppy-dog eyes glimmering with tears.. "Did… did I do something bad?"

Edd sighed. Hard to be mad at a face like that. "Well... it could have ended a lot worse, that's for certain. But next time, when I say to keep away from the windows, it's for a good reason. I'll be sure to show you the outside when the time feels right, but for now, let's just play things carefully, yes?"

"O-okay…" She replied. "I still feel bad though. Is there something I can do to make it better?"

"Well," Edd said, sitting down beside her. "when people have done something wrong and want to make up for it, a good place to start is to say that they're sorry."

"Sorry? What's that?"

Edd scratched his head a moment. "Well… to be sorry for something is to realise that you have done something bad, and want someone to know that you realise that it was bad, that you didn't mean to do it, and that you want to make it better."

Sammie nodded again. "I see... Well, I'm sorry Edd."

Edd smiled. "Apology accepted. Now, are you ready to get up off the floor? It's hardly a comfortable place to be."

For the first time in hours, Sammie smiled. Wiping the tears from her eyes, she shook her head like a dog shaking droplets of rainwater from its fur, and stood back up.

"Feel better now?" Edd asked. As if in response, Sammie grabbed him in a tight hug, burying her face in his chest.

"Yeah, a bit. But back when I first made the blinds go up like that, I felt this horrible feeling, like everything in my head was screaming at me. I wanted to run, but I wanted to fix it at the same time, and I didn't know what to do," she explained.

Edd sheepishly patted her on the head. So she does have a fight-or-flight response after all. "It's okay Sammie. What you experienced was a little something called 'Fear'. A most unpleasant, but sadly necessary part of the human condition, I'm afraid. Still, it's done its part to help the human race survive for thousands of years, so one cannot hate it too much."

Once Sammie finally felt calm enough to let go of Edd, she stroked the fur of her ears flat once more and dusted herself off. "Oh, you said you had some sort of good news?"

Edd had almost forgotten. "Oh yes! I encountered Nazz on my way out this morning, and tomorrow after school, she's going to come visit for the evening!"

Sammie visibly perked up at the news. "Really? That's great! I liked Nazz, she was really nice to me."

Edd smiled at her improvement in mood. "Indeed, she's rather taken to you. It'll be good for you to spend some time with someone other than myself for a change, heheh."

Sammie smiled broadly, happy to hear the news about Nazz, but most importantly, happy to know that she had not made Edd upset with her.

"Now then, how about we get started on dinner, and you can tell me what you've learnt today?" Edd said, heading back out the door.

"Ooh yeah, I read a lot. Like, I read this book all about these things called potatoes, it was really interesting!"

Edd skeptically raised an eyebrow. "Oh really? Do tell…"


	7. Chapter 7

The next day, things went by at school much as they had done the past few weeks. The crisp autumn air had everyone clad in warm jackets, almost eager to get into the school building, just to be somewhere warmer. Lessons came and went, cheap corn-syrup laden lunch was had, and it almost felt like an ordinary day for Edd.

As usual, he sat alongside Eddy and Ed in each class, trying his best to block out their snickering and whispering as he worked, occasionally responding to either of them tapping him on the shoulder for help with an answer. To their credit, in the past year Eddy and Ed had matured considerably concerning their school behaviour. They would actually pay attention in class and do the assignments, though not necessarily well. Naturally they still got themselves into trouble every now and then, but not nearly as often as usual. It had been well over a week since Eddy's last detention, and even then it was only because he didn't turn in a homework assignment on time.

Edd smiled as he watched them work. It did his heart good to see them taking their studies seriously at long last.

But even as he worked, his thoughts strayed again and again to his newer friend, who awaited him at home. The usual questions buzzed through his skull concerning Sammie. Exactly what was she? They were still no closer to any answer. Why did she look the way she does? Are there more like her?

But now he had a new conundrum to bother him: Could he trust her to stay safe? The previous day's incident with the blinds played heavily on his mind. They were unbelievably lucky that nobody spotted Sammie when the blinds popped up. Anybody walking by the house could have easily seen her in the window.

_I hope I can trust her to keep her word, _ he thought. _I want to trust her. If we can only keep things under wraps for a few more days, then maybe… Maybe then we can think about going outside at long last. _

He grinned wistfully to himself as he worked. _I can hardly wait to see her face when she finally steps outside. She would look simply the cutest… _

His head jolted up. _Wait, did I really just think that? _

"Hey, earth to Sockhead?"

"Hmm?" Edd found himself brought firmly back to reality by the grating tones of Eddy's voice.

"Oh, sorry Eddy. Were you saying something?"

Eddy rolled his eyes. "Sheesh Double Dee. With you over here daydreaming and Ed nose down in his work, I was startin' to think you'd switched brains with Lumpy for the day!"

Ed looked up. "Maybe he has! Do you feel a craving for pudding skin, Double Dee?"

"Erm, that's a hard no, Ed," Edd said with a grimace. "Sorry gentlemen, I'm… I'm not sure what came over me there. Let's get back to work before the teacher notices us, yes?" "That's what I was gonna ask you," Eddy replied, shoving his notebook under Edds nose

"Does this look right to you? I wanna make sure to ace this next test."

"That's the spirit, Eddy!" Edd said with a proud smile. "Let us take the proverbial bull by the horns and get you on the fast track to academic achievement! I'm so proud of you, finally taking studying seriously."

Eddy shrugged. "Well yeah, that, and my dad said he'd buy me a new record player if I get an A on this test. My old one's starting to wear out."

Edd chuckled to himself. Nothing quite spurs Eddy to taking school seriously like the reward of material gain. _Ah well_ , he mused to himself. _I'm sure he'll appreciate education for its own sake in due time. _

The day passed without incident until the final bell rang. The three Eds gathered their things and headed out the door, chatting and laughing about not much in particular until they came at last to the Cul-de-sac. With a formidable homework assignment to be done for the next day, there was no time for them to hang out that evening, so Edd gave his goodbyes and headed on his way home. For he not only had to complete his work, but also ensure the house was in a fit state for when this evening's guest would arrive.

"Sammie, I'm home," he gave is usual call as he entered his house and closed the door. "Are you upstairs?"

"Yeah, come on in!"

Dropping off his bag, he headed upstairs to his room, where he was met with a warm hug from Sammie. "Welcome home Edd."

Edd chuckled, patting her on the back in response. "Glad to be back, Sammie. So, I trust today went better than yesterday?"

She nodded, letting go at last. "Yep, I stayed here, and I didn't go near the windows this time, just like you asked."

"I'm glad," Edd replied. He glanced over her shoulder to see a small heap of books on the bed. "Ah, so what was today's reading of choice?"

Sammie picked up one of the books, entitled 'The Complete Collection of Norse Myths'. "I was mostly reading this one."

"Ah, good choice," Edd said. "A tad violent for my tastes in some places, but definitely some fascinating legends."

"Legends?" Sammie echoed. "What does that mean?"

Edd sat down on the bedside. "You know, old stories of fictional people that go back hundreds of years. Some of these stories are almost over a thousand years old."

"So if they're stories, does that mean they didn't really happen?"

Edd looked at Sammie in confusion. "Well of course not, why would you…?" He then stopped himself. _Of course, this is her first time reading fiction. _ "You see Sammie, there are two types of books: Fiction and nonfiction. Up until now you've been reading nonfiction books, which talk about things that are real, that actually exist or actually happened. But what you find in fiction are stories that are made up by the writers, either based on pre-existing stories or completely made up whole-cloth."

He gestured to the book in Sammies hand. "What you were reading were stories based on ancient myths that come from the lands we now know as Scandinavia. Every country has its own myths and legends, mythology is truly a fascinating study."

Sammie ran a hand down the front cover of the book, gazing at it in awe. "Almost a thousand years old… wow… How long is that?"

"Well," Edd chuckled. "I myself am fifteen years old. And many of those legends are over fifty times that old. The world was a very different place in those days."

He got up to head to the door. "Well, we best prepare for when Nazz gets here. While I do that, how about you tell me about your favourites of those stories?"

Sammie smiled and got up, following him downstairs. As Edd swept the kitchen floor, cleared the worktop, ensured there were drinks in the fridge and that the lounge was tidy, Sammie gleefully retold some of the exciting and often bizarre tales she had read. The tale of how Odin hung from the branches of the World tree to learn the knowledge of the Runes, and how he gave up one of his eyes to drink from the Well of Knowledge, his Riddle contest against the giant Vafthruthnir, and Sammie's personal favourite, Thor and Loki's humiliating visit to Utgard Loki, the king of the giants.

"... And then it turned out the cat was actually a giant snake in disguise! Big enough to hold the world in its tail!"

"Goodness!" Edd replied. "In that case, it's probably for the best that Thor couldn't lift him too high up."

Sammie nodded. "I guess so, yeah. But after that, the giant sent them away and told them it's probably best if they don't meet again, and he and his castle disappeared."

Edd smiled. "They really are wonderful tales. I'm more into Greek mythology myself, though. I'll find some of those for you next time…"

Any further conversation was halted by a knock at the door. "Wait here please, Sammie. I'll see if that's Nazz."

Sammie obediently sat down on the couch, grinning with excitement. Edd went to the door and peeked tentatively through the spyhole. With a sigh of relief, he stepped back and opened the door, to reveal the familiar smiling face of Nazz.

"Hi Double Dee," Nazz said with a wave.

"Good evening Nazz," Edd replied, stepping aside. "Do come in. Nobody saw you, I trust?"

She shook her head. "Nope, I made sure to be alone when I came out. So, where is she?"

"Here I am!"

Before Nazz could so much as turn her head, Sammie had practically leapt over the couch and ran to grab Nazz in a big, tight hug. "It's so good to see you again!"

Nazz giggled, getting over the initial surprise relatively quickly as she hugged her right back. "Hehe, good to see you too, Sammie! But it's only been a day."

"I know," Sammie replied as she let go. "But it's still good to see you again. I like you alot."

"Aww, that's so sweet of you!" Nazz said, playfully tousling Sammie's hair. "And I like you too, dudette."

The two of them sat down again on the couch as Edd headed to the kitchen. "Can I get you anything to drink Nazz? Soda, water, orange juice?"

"A glass of OJ would be great, thanks," Nazz replied before turning to Sammie. "So, how's it been? How's Double Dee been treatin' ya, he taking good care of you?"

Sammie nodded. "Yeah, he's been really nice to me. We hang out and talk alot when he's able to stay in. I kinda wish we could spend more time together, but he has to go out often."

Nazz nodded. "Yeah, I get that. I guess he just doesn't wanna make anyone suspicious by not showing his face for days. Plus he's definitely not the type to skip school, not even for you."

"What do they do at school, anyway?" Sammie asked. "Edd never really explained it."

Nazz giggled at her curiosity. "Well, it's a place where kids go to learn stuff. Maths, science, history, sports, stuff like that."

Sammie's ears perked up. "Oh, so kind of like what Edd has me do while he's out!"

"Oh? And what's that?"

"Well, to make sure nobody can see me, I stay up in his room and read. He's got so many books, I'm learning so much from them!" Sammie said, beaming at the thought of the veritable library upstairs.

"Aww, that's cool. But I hope you guys are able to go outside soon. Can't keep you cooped up in here forever."

Edd returned, a glass of orange juice in one and and a glass of water in the other. "Here you are, Nazz."

"Thanks dude," Nazz said, accepting the glass. "Sammie was just telling me about your little reading program you got her on."

Edd nodded. "Oh yes, since I'm not entirely comfortable with taking her out of the house just yet, so she stays in my room, where she has full access to all my books. She's been studying almost as hard as I do!"

"Heheh, that'd be tough!" Nazz giggled. "What sorta stuff have you been reading about?"

"Oh, so many things," Sammie replied. "History, nature, space, science, whatever book grabs my interest."

Nazz nodded. "That's awesome. What about stories? Been reading any fiction?"

"Only a little, I actually was reading some stories from something called Norse mythology today. So is there alot of fiction stories then?" Sammie asked.

"Since the beginning of the written word," Edd replied. "Most likely even further back than that!

Humans have been telling stories pretty much since they learned to speak to eachother."

Sammies eyes grew wide in wonder. "Wow, that long? I wonder what the first story was like…"

"Probably about hunting mammoths or something," Nazz chuckled.

"What's a mammoth?" Sammie asked, turning to Edd.

"I'll find the relevant book for you later."

"Sooo…" Nazz put down her drink on the coffee table, a wry grin creeping onto her face. "I'm kinda curious, how are you managing the, uh, sleeping arrangements?"

Edd felt the blood rush immediately to his face. Placing down his glass with a shaking hand, he grinned sheepishly. "Ah, y-yes, well… you see Nazz, my p-parents would have an absolute fit if I were to let someone sleep in one of their beds, and… Well, of course it would be impolite t-to make Sammie sleep on the floor or the couch, so…"

"I sleep with Edd," Sammie cut him off.

Edd slapped a hand to his face, utterly mortified AT Sammie's naive innocence. Nazz leapt up in her seat, shrieking with a mix of surprise and glee. "Hah, I totally knew it! Double Dee, you ladies' man!"

Edd desperately waved his hands, sputtering out a response. "I-I can assure you, it's… It's not what you're thinking! There's nowhere else for her to sleep, and I'm hardly going to confine her to a sleeping bag on the floor, or something similarly uncomfortable…"

Nazz could barely Control her laughter. "Relax dude, I'm just messin' with ya! Like I said before, everybody knows you're the safest kid in the cul-de-sac. To be honest, I doubt you'd even have the nerve to try anything."

Edd raised an eyebrow. "Erm… thank you, I think?"

"What does she mean, try anything?" Sammie asked turning to Edd.

"Well, let's just say that sleeping isn't, like, the only thing people do in bed," Nazz said with a wry wink. "So, you're just sharing the bed, that's all?"

Edd nodded enthusiastically. "Absolutely! You can rest assured, our sharing the bed is perfectly innocent and platonic. We keep to our own sides and that's that."

Nazz nodded in understanding, though her grin remained.

"So Nazz, what about you?" Sammie asked, leaning forwards. "I don't really know much about you. Can you tell me a bit about yourself?"

"Like what?"

And so they chatted, Nazz answering every question Sammie threw at her. Where she was from originally, her family, her friends, her relationship to Edd and the other Eds. And Nazz was more than happy to fill her in on the details of her likes and dislikes, her passions and hobbies. Sammie was particularly intrigued by Nazzs cheerleading.

"... So I'm captain of the cheerleading squad, with Jimmy and Sarah. So I'm the one who's gotta come up with all the routines."

"So it's like a dance performance?" Sammie asked.

"Kinda, yeah," she replied. "It's alot more, like, athletic than people think. Everyone just thinks it's dancing and chanting, but I'd like to see them try doing a full routine and ending on a human tower. That ain't easy!"

Sammie leaned forward in rapt attention. "Wow, I'd love to see you cheerleading sometime."

"Well, once we can get you outta the house and meeting other people, I'll let you sit in on a practice. Maybe you could try out for the squad, I bet you'd be great!"

"You think so?" Sammie asked, beaming. "Oh I'd love to!"

Edd, meanwhile, had been sitting back and listening throughout the conversation. He could chat with Sammie any time, after all. This was her chance to spend time with Nazz. Plus, it was interesting hearing Nazz discussing her life too. He realised that, despite having once had a massive crush on her, he knew next to nothing about her.

At one point Edd excused himself to the bathroom, and Nazz took the moment to ask something a little more personal to Sammie.

"So Sammie, now that we got a moment to ourselves, I gotta ask: what do you think of Double Dee?"

Sammies ears cocked at an angle. "You mean Edd? What do you mean?"

"What do you think of him?" Nazz repeated. "Do you like him? You comfortable around him?"

Sammie nodded. "Oh yes, I really like spending time with him. He's always so nice to me, even when I do something wrong. He's made my life very comfortable, even if it's just been a few days."

Nazz pressed on. "That's good to hear. But more than just liking him, do you _like_ him?" she emphasised the word more so on the second usage.

But her implication was lost on the naive Sammie. "Yeah, I like him alot. And I think he likes me too. I always give him a hug when he comes home, and he used to get all stiff and tense, but now he's starting to relax, and even almost hugs me back."

"Oh, so you're on hugging terms, huh?" Nazz asked, an eyebrow raised. "And how do you feel when you hug him?"

Sammie paused for a moment in thought. "How I feel? Hmm… Well, I guess I feel sort of… Warm? That's probably the best way to describe it, it makes me feel all warm and nice inside. And being around him always makes me feel… Safe. Like, whatever I see or do, he'll always make sure nothing bad happens to me."

Sammie sat in deep thought of the subject, oblivious of two things: one was the gentle smile that was creeping onto her face the more she spoke, followed closely behind my a slight blush in her cheeks. The other was the look of absolute glee that Nazz was making no effort to hide.

_Oh, she's getting it bad, _ Nazz thought to herself. _I think we might have a crush on our hands here! And only after a few days, soo adorable! _

"That's… really interesting. So you like being close to Double Dee, is that it?"

Sammie nodded.

"Would you like to be closer?" Nazz asked. _Moment of truth here. _

Sammie looked up at her. "You mean more than just friends?... Yeah, I think I would. I'd like that. But how do I do that? "

_Yes! _ "Well we gotta test the waters first, see if Double Dee thinks the same way. So here's what I want you to do, when you guys go to bed tonight…"

She whispered the rest in Sammie's furry ear. Sammie nodded as she listened. "Right… Okay… And that'll make him like me back in the same way?"

Nazz shrugged "Well maybe not make him like you, but it'll be a good way to test if he could do. So after that I want you to tell me what happened, and we'll go from there. Oh, and if he asks you or brings it up the next day, just play dumb, act like you dunno what he's talking about."

"Well I don't really, so that should be easy," Sammie replied with a grin.

Before the discussion could continue further. The bathroom door upstairs opened and Edd returned. "Pardon me ladies, did I miss anything?"

"Nah, just girl-talk," Nazz replied, giving a subtle wink to Sammie. She grinned back.

Edd looked uncertainly between the two, then shrugged. "Indeed."

Nazz looked at her watch and sighed. "Well, I better get going. My folks want me back home before dark."

Sammie's ears drooped. "Aww, really? I wish you could stay longer."

"Well I'd suggest staying overnight, but sounds like things are a bit crowded here already tonight," Nazz replied with a snicker. "Besides, if anyone saw me leave your house tomorrow morning, like, I don't even wanna think what Kevin would have to say."

"True," Edd replied. "I'll walk you to the door."

Sammie got up. "Me too."

Edd opened the door and Sammie fetched Nazz's jacket from the coathook. "We should totally keep doing this, it was really fun!"

"Oh yeah, definitely," Sammie replied, nodding enthusiastically. "I can't wait to see you again."

She gave Nazz an affectionate hug, which she reciprocated. "Well hopefully it won't be too long until then."

Edd smiled. "Keep in touch Nazz, we'll find a time to do this again. Have a good evening!"

"Likewise, guys. And Sammie," Nazz winked again at Sammie. "Remember what I told ya."

Sammie winked back, very unsubtly. "You got it."

Nazz waved one more time and headed out the door. Edd watched her go and closed the door, an eyebrow raised, before turning to Sammie. "Exactly what were you two talking about?"

Sammie shrugged. "Just girl-talk."

"Rrgh, stupid garbage… Why's the garbage-man gotta pick up the trash so early in the morning?"

Eddy grumbled to himself as he hauled a pair of bulging black trashbags to the curb. Dusting his hands as he dropped them on the pavement, he gagged at the assorted smells wafting from the bags.

"Yeesh, gross! Well, I'd say I earned myself a soda from the… Fridge…"

He trailed off as he spotted an altogether unusual sight. Walking briskly down the sidewalk, clad in a jacket that she had not been wearing at school, was Nazz of all people.

"Nazz?" Eddy said to himself. "What's she doin' out? And why's she coming from that direction, the only thing down that way is… Double Dee's place. But what's she doin' there at this… "

His eyes bulged as realisation dawned upon him. "No. Way. Couldn't be…"

He rushed back indoors and to the kitchen. "Gotta use the phone for a sec, Mom!"

Grabbing the phone from the cradle, he punched in a number he had dialled many times before. The dial tone buzzed a few times before someone picked up. "Hello?... Oh, hey Sarah, can you put Ed on the phone? Yeah… okay, thanks."

There was silence for a moment before a familiar voice spoke through the receiver. "Do you have Prince Albert in a can?"

Eddy rolled his eyes. "Cut the comedy, Lumpy. You're not gonna _believe_ what I just saw!"

Edd stretched his arms high into the air. "Well, I think it's probably best we retire for the night. Another early start for school tomorrow. Come on Sammie, time for bed."

Sammie nodded and followed him as he headed upstairs. Behind his back, she grinned. Time to put Nazz's advice into action.

Once Sammie headed to the bathroom to change, Edd slipped into a fresh set of pyjamas, put his clothes in the laundry hamper and set to returning the books Sammie had left there to their spaces on the shelf. As he finished and clambered into bed, Sammie returned, clad this time in her second set of pyjamas: a pink and white camisole with matching trousers.

"Well, that was a nice way to end the night," Edd said, tucking himself in.

Sammie nodded as she got into bed beside him. "Yeah, it was really nice having Nazz visit. She's a really interesting person."

"That she is," Edd replied. "I never knew half of what she told us about herself this evening. She really has taken to you."

Sammie grinned. "I like her too. That cheerleading thing sounded really cool. I'd love to try it sometime."

"Well, maybe once we reach a point that we can get you out of the house, she can show you," Edd replied, very swiftly pushing the mental image of Sammie in a cheerleader's uniform our of his head. "For now though, high time we were resting for a brand new day tomorrow. Nighty night, Sammie."

He flipped the switch on the bedside lamp and rolled over to his side to sleep. As much of a front he put up, Edd had to admit, he was still not entirely used to sharing a bed with a girl. _Best to sleep this way, _ he mused to himself. _If I can't see her, perhaps it won't play on my mind as much. _

"Goodnight, Edd." Sammie, meanwhile, lay on her back facing the ceiling. tucked in under the covers. Just like Nazz told her. Wait a bit to let Edd settle, let him think she's fallen asleep too. She rolled over to face away from him, risking a peek every now and then to check if Edd has fallen asleep. His breathing implied that he was awake, but restful and perhaps beginning to doze off. _Here we go… _

Stretching a hand up towards the ceiling, she deliberately murmured to herself, as if in her sleep. With bated breath, she rolled over to her right, facing the same way as Edd, and gently draped her outstretched arm over Edd's side, scooting slightly closer so that her front was resting lightly against his back. The 'Backpack' position, Nazz called this. She made a mental note to ask why.

It was just as the misty veil of sleep was beginning to overcome him, that Edd heard Sammie stir behind him. _Having a dream, no doubt, _ he thought to himself. _What would a person like her dream of? Does she even- _

But any further thought was cut off by the feeling of Sammie's arm wrapping itself around Edd's middle.

His whole body went stiff as a board as blood rushed to his face. _Oh goodness what is she doing please what is this oh dear why is she holding me like this this isn't appropriate I'm sure she didn't mean to but still how can I get her to stop I… _

But after about a minute of endless panicked thoughts streaming unhindered through his mind, he found the blinding shock of the situation began to subside. His senses began to return, and with it, he began to notice things.

He noticed how lightly Sammie's arm tested atop him. Not nearly as heavy as he'd imagined it being.

The feeling returned to his limbs.

He noticed how soft her hand was as it held him gently around his stomach. It felt delicate, smooth.

The tension in his torso began to subside.

He noticed the warmth of her body pressed against his. He had felt her against him before whenever she hugged him but this, this felt different somehow.

His pounding heart slowed down as the shock and tension melted away.

He noticed the gentle, soothing sound of her breathing close to his ear. So soothing…

_So this is how cuddling feels… _

His whole body relaxed into Sammie's comforting embrace. His eyes drooped shut and his breathing slowed as he drifted to sleep.

Behind him, Sammie did her best to give nothing away analysing Edd's every move and twitch. Minutes stretched by that felt like an eternity. _Is this how it works, _ she thought to herself. _How do I know if I did right? _

And then, as if in response, Edd stirred in his sleep. His hand moved down from gripping the hem of the bedsheets to rest gently on top of her hand that was wrapped around his waist. Then, almost as if to drive the point home, he let out a tiny little sigh of contentment.

Sammie's face lit up with glee as a blush erupted on her cheeks. As she too began to slip into slumber, snuggling in even closer to Edd, only one word filled her mind:

_Yes!_


	8. Chapter 8

The first thing Edd felt as he awoke was warmth. Not uncomfortable warmth, far from it. It was a soothing, comfortable sensation. He yawned aloud and strained his heavy eyelids open as he also noticed a gentle weight sitting upon his chest and stomach

"Ooohh… Good morning Sammie. I must say, I had the most peculiar…" but his words froze in his throat as his eyes opened and the world came into focus, and he saw the source of the warm, heavy feeling was.

Apparently at some point in his sleep, he had rolled over onto his back, and there, snuggled up to his side was Sammie, still fast asleep, with her head resting on his chest. And what's more, his attention was also drawn to the other weight on his stomach, where his own hand rested, fingers clasped with Sammie's.

"Oh… my…" squeaked Edd.

As he tried to ease his hand away from hers, Sammie stirred. _This is not good, _he thought. _I thought I dreamt all of that… I have no idea what happened while we slept, but this is most inappropriate! _

Sammie mumbled as her eyes creaked open and she turned to look up at Edd. She smiled as her eyes met his. "Good morning Edd."

_How is she so calm about this?! _"I… I, uh, I t-trust you slept W-well?"

She nodded. "Very well, thank you. And you?"

"I slept…" he said as he released his hand from hers. "... Very well, th-thank you. But now it's, uh, time to get up, yes…"

He slipped out from under Sammie's form, perhaps a bit less gently than he would have normally, had he not been in a state of mild panic at the time. "I'll just get myself a quick shower, and then some breakfast."

Sammie started to get up, her smile fading somewhat as she began to realise that perhaps Edd had not responded to her little test as positively as she had thought. "Okay, I'll get dressed while you do that. I'll meet you at the-"

But before she could finish Edd had grabbed his clothes and a fresh towel and raced out of the room, leaving behind a very bemused and not entirely happy Sammie.

"-table."

As Edd scrubbed himself under the cascade of warm water, his mind raced. _How on earth did we end up in such a compromising position?_ _I remember Sammie rolling over and putting her arm over me, but I almost thought that had been a dream! _

He turned the water off and wrapped himself in a towel. _I'm sure she didn't mean it. She must have done it in her sleep. Yes, that must be it, and I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, _he reasoned.

_Then agai_n, he thought, _there was also the matter of us… Holding hands…. But I'm sure that was just in our sleep as well… that must be it… _

As he finished dressing and caught his eye in the mirror, he asked himself, "Isn't it?"

He did not look entirely convinced.

"Ah well, no time to dwell on such things. I still need to get ready for school!" he said aloud as he headed out and downstairs to the kitchen.

There he saw Sammie waiting for him at the table, dressed this time in her turquoise blouse and pleated black skirt. "Hi!" she said with a wave. Edd sheepishly waved back as he tried to push the thoughts about last night out of his mind.

"So, are you going to school again today?" she asked.

Edd nodded. "Indeed I am, and for the next few days as well. At my age, we must attend school five days a week, with the last two days of the week off. Hence why they are called 'weekends'."

"I wish you didn't have to," she replied. "I wish we could spend more time together."

"And I as well," Edd said, fixing himself a bowl of cereal. "I'm eager to do some more research, and see if I can find out more about what you might be. But one cannot get ahead in life without a good education."

"What about not research?"

He looked up, his mouth too full of Chunky Puffs to manage more than a muffled "Mmph?"

Sammie continued. "It would be good to learn more about what I am. But what about spending time together _not_ doing research?"

She looked up to Edd, a serene smile on her face. "Just spending time together… Being together?"

Edd gulped nervously. _Where is she going with this? _"I think that would be lovely. What do you have in mind?"

"Well…" she looked away for a moment, absentmindedly twirling a lock of her hair around her finger before looking at Edd again. "I guess it would be nice if we could… If we could maybe go outside?"

Edd thought to himself, tapping his spoon on the tabletop. _I suppose it was inevitable, _he mused. _But could we? Is there some way that we could leave the house, but also remain unseen? _

He looked to Sammie, who looked back at him with pleading eyes. _She is getting far too good at that. _"Well, I suppose if I can think of a safe way of managing it, then yes, yes we can!"

Sammie grinned from ear to ear. "You really mean that?!"

Edd nodded, and in a heartbeat found himself engulfed in another one of Sammie's hugs. "Thank you thank you thank you!"

He smiled, absentmindedly stroking the top of Sammie's head. _Well, time to get the old thinking-cap on, Eddward, _he thought. _How pray tell, will we give her a chance to explore the world without being seen? _

Half an hour later, breakfast was had, teeth were brushed and bag was packed, and Edd was ready to head to another school day. "Well Sammie, I'll see you this evening. I hope your day's reading is enlightening."

For the first time, Edd opened his arms, welcoming in Sammie's goodbye hug. She brought it in, holding him tight against her. "I can't wait for when you come home."

Edd looked at her quizzically. "Heh, I appreciate being missed, but I'm just going to school."

"Missed?" Sammie echoed. "What's missed?"

"It's… It's like when you feel sad that a person is no longer present, and you want for them to come back."

Sammie gazed into his eyes. "Well then, I'll definitely miss you."

She hugged Edd one more time, and Edd bade her goodbye, heading out the door. Sammie stood in the hallway for a moment, just looking at the door. "Hmm… I'm not sure how that went. I did it all right, didn't I? I did everything Nazz said I should… Did I do something wrong?"

_I'll have to ask Nazz next time I see her_, she thought to herself as she headed back upstairs. "I just want you to like me more, Edd. I just want to make you happy."

Edd, Meanwhile, was sadly far from happy. As he walked to school, his mind was filled with thoughts about the previous night and this morning.

What had happened? Did Sammie mean to do all that? _She had been pretty firmly cuddled up to me this morning, _he thought. _I somewhat doubt that was purely by accident in her sleep. But then why would she do it if it was deliberate? To be affectionate to that degree goes a tad beyond simple platonic friendship. _

He stopped in his tracks for a moment. _Surely it couldn't be that she… _

_Oh no, surely not, _Edd scoffed. _I'll give her hugging and being affectionate, that just seems to come naturally to her. But I somewhat doubt she has those sorts of feelings so early into her life. Would she even know what such feelings are? _

He continued musing as he carried on walking his legs almost on autopilot. _Then again, maybe its because she's so young in her life… an imprinting sort of thing, perhaps? _

_And even if it was, would it be such a bad thing? _

Edd started, surprised by his own thoughts. "Did I really just think that?!"

_Oh come now Eddward, _the voice in his mind said. _You were just thinking about this very matter a few days ago. If Sammie truly is interested in you as more than just a friend, would that really be so bad? _

"Well… Perhaps not," he replied to himself. "But she's not even a week old, even if she looks the same age as me. It just doesn't feel right… And I'm not even sure how I feel about her… "

But any further thoughts would have to be saved for another time as he found himself at the gates of the school. Dozens of kids were still streaming in droves to the main building, and Edd quickly joined them. Perhaps the day's assignments would help keep his mind off of such troublesome things.

Little did he know, just rounding the bend was something far more troublesome, as Eddy and Ed arrived at school as well.

"I'm tellin' ya Ed, I know what I saw," Eddy murmured to Ed. "There I was taking out the trash, and who do I see coming out of Double Dee's house?"

Ed paused in deep thought for a moment. "Hmm

… An alien scout sent to track down the planets biggest brains?"

"Nazz, you lump!" Eddy shouted, slapping Ed in the back of his head. "I saw Nazz coming out, acting all sneaky about it too. Doesn't that seem suspicious to you?"

Ed shrugged. "Maybe Nazz needed help with homework?"

Eddy scoffed. "Pff, yeah that old story. I've seen enough late night Cinemax movies to know how that goes. Come on Ed, think about it! Edd's been blowing us off any chance we get to hang out after school, and even when we do hang out he's always the first to go home. And now we have Nazz paying him a late night visit. You read what I'm sayin' here?"

He looked expectantly at Ed, who simply shrugged in response. Eddy slapped a hand to his face. "Rrgh, come on Lumpy, even your pathetic excuse for a brain can put two and two together, Nazz and Sockhead are seeing eachother, and behind Kevin's back too!"

Ed gasped aloud as the two walked down the hallway. "Say it ain't so! Poor Double Dee has succumbed to the mushy sickness that is girls!"

"Don't make it sound like Double Dee's a victim here Ed, he's as guilty as Nazz is. We gotta do something about this, he's gonna ruin everything! After all these years, we're finally in everybody's good books, and like heck am I gonna let Sockhead ruin it all by cheating with Kevin's girl!"

The two Eds came to their lockers and put their bags away as they discussed the matter. "Here's the plan Ed, we got all the same classes as Double Dee today, so we got plenty of chances to put the pressure on. We keep squeezing and squeezing until bam! We get a confession outta him!"

"Like cheese in the trap!" Ed added, eliciting an eye-roll from Eddy.

"Whatever. And then we make him confess to Kevin before he makes things any worse. It's the perfect plan!"

But any further discussion was cut short by the trilling of the bell. Eddy and Ed gathered their books and hurried to the homeroom.

There Edd was, sitting in his usual seat, rifling through his shoulderbag. He looked up with a smile as he saw his two closest friends enter.

"Good day gentlemen!" he said with a wave. "I was wondering where you two were."

"Hiya Double Dee," Eddy replied with a grin dropping with barely-contained malice. "How ya doing?"

Edd smiled, failing to notice. "I'm quite well, thank you Eddy."

Eddy sat down at the desk behind Edd's, while Ed was behind him. As Ed busied himself befriending an ant that was making its way across his desk, Eddy leaned in. _Time to put the squeeze on. _

"So Sockhead, you have a good evening?"

Edd started a moment before replying. "It was a perfectly decent evening, yes."

"You get up to anything cool?" Eddy pressed.

"Not… Really, just you know, homework, dinner, tending to my ants, that sort of thing. Why do you ask?"

"Because," Eddy leaned in, lowering his voice. "A little bird told me and Ed that you had company last night. That true?"

Edd froze. _Oh dear, are they on to me? _"I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about."

Before Eddy could press further, the teacher walked in and sat down. Edd glanced nervously at Eddy and Ed as the roll was called, and when the bell rang for the first lesson, he made a point of getting up and heading to his next class as quickly as possibly.

_This is not good, _Edd thought to himself as he briskly walked down the hall to the Math classroom. Sitting himself at a desk in the far corner, he busied himself with his bag and books, eager to not make eye-contact with Eddy or Ed when they enter. _Surely they couldn't know about Sammie already, could they? _

He stifled a startled squeak as Eddy and Ed entered, glaring around the room like carnivores on the prowl.

"Heya Sockhead," Eddy said as he sat down beside him. "Why's ya run off like that? We were in the middle of a conversation. Not very polite of ya."

"Apologies Eddy, I, uh…" Edd paused, wracking his brain for an excuse. "I needed to ask the teacher about some things before the lesson began."

"Whatever you say, Double Dee," Eddy replied, a leery grin creeping into his face again. "Now, are you sure you didn't have anyone over last night?"

"I'm quite certain, Eddy," he said, keeping his head down and his eyes on his book.

Throughout the lesson Eddy and Ed persisted, asking him again and again about the previous night, whether he had anybody over to visit, and again and again Edd denied anything other than having done some work.

But even with the lesson over, the badgering did not end. All through Science, English Lit, Home Ec.

By the time Geography came about, Edd, now thoroughly rattled and sweating bullets, had had quite enough of Eddy and Eds persistence. Raising his hand he said to the teacher, "Pardon me sir, but this desk gets rather bad glare from the windows. Might it be possible to move to a different desk?"

The teacher nodded, and Edd quickly scooped up his books and stationary, moving to a desk three seats over from Eddy and Ed, far from their glares and interrogation. However, minutes later, while the class were quietly writing notes, Edd heard a gentle tapping to his right. There sat Johnny, who was tapped again on his desk with a pencil before passing a small piece of paper to Edd. Unfolding it, Edd gulped nervously at what it said.

"WE KNOW WHAT YOU DID SOCKHEAD. JUST ADMIT IT AND THIS WON'T GET UGLY."

He chanced a peek to where Eddy and Ed were sitting, and grew pale as he saw Eddy and Ed looking right back, Eddy with a malicious grin, and Ed with a gormless smile. _This is going to be a long day. _

All through the day he distanced himself as much as possible from Eddy and Ed, hiding out in the library during lunch, partnering with Rolf during History class. But when the final period of the day rolled about, woodshop, he found himself once again sandwiched between his fellow Eds.

"Just admit it Double Dee," Eddy muttered. "We know all about last night and your little house guest. Come clean and maybe we won't rat you out."

"Eddy, I assure you," Edd whispered back. "I haven't the foggiest idea what you and Ed are talking about."

Ed placed a comforting hand on Edds shoulder. "You don't have to do this alone Double Dee, there is a cure."

Both Edd and Eddy looked at Ed in confusion. "Now, do ya feel like owning up? Or do we gotta put the squeeze on you even more?" Eddy asked, putting a far less gentle hand on Edds other shoulder.

Edd glanced frantically back and forth between his two friends. There seemed to be no way out. Unless… _could I get away with it a second time?_

He sighed. _I'm sorry gentlemen, but this must be done. _He raised his hand.

"I'm, pardon me? I know it's nearly the end of the lesson but may I please use the restroom?"

As soon as the yes left the teachers lips, Edd had gathered his things and sprinted out the door.

"Seriously?!" Eddy groaned. "He pulls that trick again? Ed, as soon as class is over, we're going after him!"

Ed saluted, nearly concussing himself as he forgot a moment that his saluting hand currently was holding a hammer.

Edd, meanwhile, had not stopped running. Lying to a teacher, avoiding his friends, he felt lower than a dog. But desperate times called for desperate measures. And he could not afford for Sammie to be found out so soon.

He pushed open the doors of the school building, looking around for anything that could speed up his journey to the cul-de-sac. All the bikes were chained up, and any kids who used skateboards stored them in their lockers.

Edd cursed his bad luck, dreading the inevitable jog back to his house, when the rumble of an engine just around the corner drew his attention.

Peeking around, he saw his salvation, in the form of a large red tractor being driven by Rolf.

_Of course! _He thought to himself. _Rolf always get out of school early this time of year, so he can help his family the harvest. Thank the heavens! _

"Rolf!" he cried, running over.

The lanky boy looked up with a smile. "Oh hello wise-as-a-village-crone Ed Boy! Did the overseers of education allow you early pardon too?"

Edd shrugged. "Er, something like that. Rolf, I must ask a favour of you. Your tractor can go fast, yes?"

"That it can," Rolf replied. "Rolf has been able to plough an entire field in minutes on this mighty machine. Why do you ask?"

Edd clambered aboard. "Because for personal reasons, I need to get back to the cul-de-sac as quickly as possible. Can you do that please?"

Rolf pondered for a moment, then shrugged. "Very well, Rolf will ferry you to the Cul-de-sac with all haste! Climb on Ed Boy."

Edd clumsily scrambled onto the back of the tractor. "Thank you thank you thank you! You truly are a Saint, Rolf!"

Rolf chuckled, before revving the engine and stomping the pedal. The tractor roared and lurched forwards to the incredible speed of twelve miles an hour.

_Well, a drag racer it is not, _Edd mused as he sat behind Rolf, _but it is still faster than walking or running. And far less strenuous. _

He turned around and saw with a jolt of fear as Eddy and Ed burst out of the school doors, looking this way and that for him, before Ed pointed out the swiftly retreating tractor and its passenger. Edd fought the urge to give a smug wave to them as he and Rolf trundled away.

Eddy, meanwhile, was in the middle of fuming and raging as he saw Edd disappear from sight. "Rrgh! That slippery little weasel! He got away!"

"What do we do now Eddy?" Ed moaned as he waved mournfully after Edd. "He is too smart for us, we'll never catch him!"

"Don't bet on it Lumpy," Eddy replied, pushing Ed out of the way. "Double Dee might have gotten a head start on us, but I know a shortcut that'll take us right back to the cul-de-sac. And right at his front door, that's where we'll nab him! Follow me!"

Eddy sprinted off in the direction of the nearby woods, arms outstretched and body nearly parallel to the ground. Ed galumphed behind him, head and arms trailing behind him.

"...And that was the first and last time Rolf would ever see the creature ever again."

Edd, however, was not paying attention to Rolfs riveting anecdote about his youth in the Old Country, when he spotted a pale, long-limbed man wandering a forest near his home. He was simply relieved to be away from Eddy and Ed. It had been a long shot, but now he had one more evening to formulate a plan, for how to deal with his friends.

"Your shack has been arrived at, Head-and-Sock Ed Boy," Rolf called from the driver seat. Edd looked up and saw with joy and relief that they were indeed just outside his house.

Ass he climbed down, Edd said, "Rolf, I cannot thank you enough for this. I am in your debt."

Rolf waved to him as he walked up the driveway. "Rolf will be sure to remember this, and will surely ask a favour of you, Ed Boy! But for now Rolf must depart, for today the harvest begins! Goodbye!"

And with that, the tractor rumbled off, this time at a far more leisurely pace. Edd breathed a sigh of relief as he reached for his keys.

"Sanctuary at long last," he said to himself as he pushed the door open.

"Guess again smart guy! Now Ed!"

Edd turned around and saw too late the source of the outcry. Before. He could even cry out he was engulfed in two pairs of arms and the combined stenches of musty, unwashed jacket, and cheap cologne. Eddy and Ed barrelled into him, the three of them sent tumbling through Edd's front door. Eddy quickly. Disentangled himself from the heap on the doormat and slammed the door shut.

"Hah, we gotcha now!" Eddy cackled, as Ed got up from the floor, Edd held firmly under his arm like a rolled up newspaper.

"But… How did you…?"

"Beat you home?" Eddy finished. "I know every shortcut in Peach Creek, Sockhead. Now that we got you where you can't run or hide, ya feel like talkin'?"

Edd squirmed in Eds grasp. "Talk about what?! This is absurd, I've done nothing wrong!"

In response, Ed planted Edd firmly on a chair at the dining room table, and dragged a standing lamp to point directly at Edds face. "I got this Eddy, I saw this in a cop movie once."

The effect of the bright light in his face was somewhat diminished by it still being broad daylight.

"Atta boy, Ed. So Double Dee, time for you to fess up!" Eddy exclaimed, slamming his hands on the tabletop.

"To what? What am I being accused of, exactly?" he asked.

Eddy leaned in close. "Don't play innocent, traitor! You know exactly what you've been doing!"

He continued as he paced back and forth in front of Edd. "I can't believe you, Double Dee! After all this time finally in with the other kids, and you're this close to screwing it all up!"

Edd looked in confusion. "Wait, pardon? What do you-?"

"And for what?" Eddy ranted. "Just to get some action with Nazz? Even when you know she and Kevin are a thing! That's way outta line, man!"

_Is that what this is about? _"Eddy, you're very mistaken! There is nothing between Nazz and I, I completely respect that she is spoken for."

"Oh yeah? Then what was she doin' at your house last night? And don't deny it, I saw her leaving with my own eyes!"

"Spill the peas, mister!" Ed shouted, leaning across the table at Edd as well.

Edd shuffled uncomfortably. He was wrong about what he thought Eddy and Ed suspected him of doing, but he was no less stuck. How could he explain without giving away Sammie?

He looked down. "I just… I'm sorry Eddy, but I can't tell you why. I can promise it was no romantic rendezvous, but I can tell you nothing more."

The room was silent for a moment. One would need an especially sharp knife to cut through such tension.

Eddy sat back with a sigh. "Alright Double Dee, you leave us no choice. Ed!"

With a snap of Eddy's fingers, Ed was behind Edd's chair. Edd glanced up nervously at him.

"Um, Ed?"

Ed raised his hands up, fingers outstretched ominously. "For the greater good, Double Dee."

Any further thoughts Edd may have had were drowned out as his body was racked with agonising ecstasy as Ed began tickling him mercilessly.

"Ooaahahahaa! Ed, oohoo! Please st-st-ahaha, stop!" Edd shrieked.

"Not until you fess up!" Eddy shouted. "Why was Nazz here last night? What's going on?"

"I ca-hahaha-Ooh! I can't t-tell you-hoohoo! Oho please, no more!"

It was too much. His cheeks were hurting from laughing so hard, he could barely breathe and he desperately needed to pee, but Edd held firm, refusing to break.

"Come on Sockhead, we don't have all night!" Eddy shouted to be heard over Edd's laughter.

"Edd, is that you?"

And then there was silence. Edd felt all colour drain from his face as he heard that voice from upstairs. Eddy and Ed looked in the direction of the voice in utter confusion.

"Who the heck?" Eddy asked.

"I didn't know your house was haunted, Double Dee," Ed added.

The sound of a door creaking open and gentle footsteps muffled by carpet heralded Sammie's approach. Edd prayed in vain for the earth to just open him up and swallow him whole. So much for his secret.

"Edd, I'm so glad you're home! I saw some really pretty cakes in one of your books, and I was wondering if we could try… "

But she fell silent as she entered the room, to find Edd pinned to his chair and surrounded by two boys she did not recognise, all of whom were looking at her in complete bafflement.

Sammie, however, smiled pleasantly at them. "Oh! Are these your friends? Hiya, I'm Sammie, Edd created me and now I live with him!"

Silence. Save for a gentle _pat_ as Edd slapped a palm to his face.

"Uhh, so there's alot of questions going through my brain right now…" Eddy said as he stared at Sammie. "But the top one is probably… Why's there a girl I've never seen before, who looks like she's got cat ears, in your house?"

Edd sighed. "Ed, Eddy, you may want to have a seat. This explanation may take a while…"


	9. Chapter 9

"Okay, you wanna run that by me one more time?"

Edd and Sammie watched Eddy pace back and forth on the living room rug, rubbing the bridge of his nose in exasperation as he went. Edd shrugged. "There's not really much else to explain, Eddy. On the way home from school a few days ago, I found a strange trinket on the ground, brought it home with all intention of returning it to its owner the next day I had a strange dream that night, and when I woke up the next morning, there she was!"

"And I've been living here ever since, " Sammie added with a nod. "Edd was nice enough to let me stay."

Eddy stopped pacing a moment and stared at her, eyeing her up and down. "But… Who even _is_ she?! Where did she come from?! 'Cos from those ears, I'm gonna bet she's not exactly just some new kid in town."

He leaned in, peering closely at Sammies furry ears. "They real?"

"They feel real to me, Eddy."

Ed, who had been standing behind the couch, reached over and petted her ears, scritching and tugging gently on the fur. Edd only had to look at the red flush emerging on Sammies scrunched-up face, and read her clenching fists and curling toes to realise just how uncomfortable she was finding it. "Ed, stop that! Sammies ears are very sensitive!"

Ed quickly withdrew his hands. "Oops, sorry alien girl!"

"And she's not an alien either, Ed," Edd replied. "Are you okay Sammie?"

She visibly relaxed once Ed had taken his hands off her ears. "Uh, yeah, I'm fine, thanks. And yes, they are my real ears."

"But how?" Eddy asked. "How's a human end up with big fuzzy cat ears?! Are they a… Y'know, birth defect or mutation or something?"

"Oooh, ooh!" Ed jumped up and down. "Maybe she's a mutant that escaped from a lab where scientists were crossing animals with people to create a race of beast people!"

"Huh, maybe I am!" Sammie replied, looking to Edd.

Edd shook his head, chuckling. "I'm fairly certain she isn't some human animal chimaera, Ed. For one thing, she hasn't displayed any particularly animalistic behaviour. As best I can discern, she just has those ears, and nothing more. No tail, fur, claws, fangs or anything of the sort."

Eddy rubbed his eyes. "But that still doesn't explain who she _is! _Didn't you say you think you created her or something, Sockhead? Was it like some Weird Science kinda thing?"

Edd nodded. "I believe so, Eddy. I haven't the faintest idea how, but Sammie and I both agree that wherever she came from, I am somehow responsible for her being here."

"And that's why you're letting her stay, right Double Dee?" Ed chimed in. "Because she's your responsibility, right?"

"Very well put, Ed," Edd replied. "I couldn't very well just leave her or throw her out, Eddy. What kind of a gentleman would I be if I refused to help someone in need?"

"Riiiight, and if you really did create her like you say, she was purely by accident," Eddy said with a sarcastic eye-roll. "And totally not you being desperate and sad enough to create your own girlfriend."

Edd and Sammie jumped with surprise as if shocked with a cattle-prod. Their faces flushed red, his an expression of embarrassment, while hers was one of barely contained glee.

" Really? " Sammie asked, turning excitedly to Edd." Did you really make me to be your girlfriend?"

"What?!" Edd sputtered. "No no, of course not! I would never… No, definitely not! It's as I've said before, I haven't the faintest idea how or why you came about."

The three Eds seemed not to notice as Sammies expression dropped slightly as she sat back in her spot on the couch. "Oh, that's… that's okay, that makes sense…Yeah."

Eddy cosied playfully up against Edd on the couch. "Are you suuure about that, Sockhead? You got the knowhow, I'm sure you got the desperation in there too somewhere, hehe!"

Edd pushed Eddy off the couch with a grin. "Oh come off it, Eddy. Even I wouldn't be that desperate."

He laughed along with Eddy as he got up off the floor. "So then," Eddy said, taking a close look at Sammie. "You don't know where she's from, what she is or why she's here… Is there anything you _do_ know?"

Edd shrugged. "Not much, I'm afraid. We did deduce that she doesn't need to eat, that much we know for certain. That and, well, she rather struggles to even attempt to eat."

"I kinda wish we'd learned that in a less painful way," Sammie added with a frown.

"So how do you survive then? Eddy asked.

"Attention," Sammie concisely replied. "Talking, hugging, spending time together, as long as someone's giving me some sort of attention, I'm good to go."

Eddy grinned cheekily at Edd, nudging him in the ribs with an elbow. "Hugging eh? So Double Dee, have you been 'giving her attention'?"

Edd shoved him back. "Come off it Eddy. To be honest she does most of the hugging, I just reciprocate."

Eddy nodded, not losing his grin. "Sure, sure… Now seriously though, one more question for ya: Where does Nazz fit into all this? Does she know about her?"

Edd nodded. "She's the only person besides you who knows. When Sammie first appeared, I contacted Nazz almost straight away."

"And you didn't think to tell your two best friends?!" Eddy said with a frown.

"For shame!" Ed said, briefly looking up from his entranced staring at Sammies ears. He then turned back to gawk dumbfounded at them. Sammie noticed this and gently twitched her left ear. Ed started with surprise, chuckling to himself at the sight.

Edd shrugged. "I'm Sorry, Eddy, I had no idea how you and Ed would react. I did intend to tell you eventually, but at first I wanted to keep her secret."

"But why Nazz of all people?"

Edd blushed, his eyes turning to the floor. "Ah, yes… Well that would be because… You see, when Sammie first…"

"I didn't have any clothes when I first appeared." Sammie interrupted.

Edd slapped his face in mortification once more.

Eddy whooped with laughter. "Daaang! So not just a cute girl, but a cute naked girl appears in your bedroom? Double Dee, you ladies' man!"

"I can assure you, nothing objectionable happened when that occurred! I contacted Nazz because I needed some clothes for her, and she just so happened to have some old outfits she no longer required." Edd said.

Eddy shrugged. "Fair enough. Heh, leave it to you to miss out on a perfect chance to get some."

"Eddy!" Edd shouted, blushing furiously.

"Get some what Eddy?" Ed asked.

"I'll tell you when you're older, Ed."

"And since then, Nazz and Sammie have rather hit it off, so we've decided that as long as she's discrete, she can come and visit Sammie every now and then," Edd continued. "It just so happened that by some unlucky timing, you somehow spotted her as she left."

Eddy nodded in understanding. For a moment the four of them were silent, each processing all the information they were all now privy to. Or, in Eds case, continuing to be enraptured by the sight of Sammies ears.

" So… " Edd said, finally breaking the silence. "I suppose the question is, where do we go from here?"

Eddy shrugged. "I dunno, what do you think?"

Edd stood up, stepping out in front of everyone. "Well for one thing, I must beseech the two of you to keep this to yourselves. The last thing I want is the other kids to find out about Sammie before we're ready to, uh… go public, as it were. So Ed, Eddy, I must ask both of you with as much gravitas and sincerity as I can muster, speak of this to nobody, except Nazz since she already knows."

Eddy looked at Edd, and saw the seriousness in his eyes. Whatever it was that Edd was going through with this whole situation, it was clear it was something he was not taking lightly.

"You know," Eddy said, scratching the back of his head. "A year ago, I would've seen this is as prime scamming-material. Stick a tail and some whiskers on her, set her up on a stage and charge sucker twenty-five cents a gander to see the 'Amazing Animal Girl'..."

Edd glared at him, his stomach turning at the mere thought of exploiting Sammie for the sake of some quick cash.

Eddy held his hands up defensively. "Hey hey! I was about to continue by saying, you're lucky I'm a changed man, Sockhead. So until you guys are ready to go public with this, your secret's safe with me."

Edd and Sammie breathed a sigh of relief. "I'm glad to hear it, Eddy. And Ed, I hope you understand how important this is. You can't tell anyone about Sammie. Not the other kids, not Sarah, not your parents, not even Sheldon Jr. Understand?"

Ed nodded enthusiastically. "Worry not, Double Dee. Your secret is safe with me, 'cos I've already forgotten what we're talking about!"

Edd rolled his eyes. "I guess I'll take that. Thank you, gentlemen. It truly means alot that I can rely on you two."

Eddy placed a friendly arm over his shoulder. "Hey, you can always count on me, buddy! Whatever it takes to keep you and your girlfriend happy."

"Eddy, it's not like that!" Edd was very quick to reply.

"Are you sure? I guess you ain't paying attention to how she's been looking at ya," Eddy replied.

Edd turned to face Sammie, just in time to see her quickly looking down at the floor, her face flushed pink.

"Sammie?"

She nervously toyed with a lock of her fringe. "It… It's nothing. I was just… I'm just happy that you're so serious about taking care of me."

Edd smiled, not even reacting as he felt his face growing warmer. "I'm glad you feel so well cared-for."

The two of them locked eyes for a moment, only to be jolted out of their trance by Eds voice.

"No Double Dee! Do not give in to her hypnotic powers, or she will have you enslaved under her control, and believing that shoe-shopping is fun!" he shouted, sliding in between them over the back of the sofa, only to slide right off the front and onto the rug.

"I'm okay."

Eddy stared a moment at his friend, before turning back to Edd. "So, you said you've been looking for ways that you two can go outside without her being spotted?"

Edd nodded.

"I might have an idea about that," Eddy continued with a grin.


	10. Chapter 10

On this crisp autumn evening, as cars began pulling back into driveways as parents returned home from work, the cul-de-sac was treated to a sight it had not seen in quite some time.

The Eds, looking a bit suspicious.

Most of the kids had already headed indoors to escape the chill of the breeze, but a few adults watched with eyebrows raised as the three boys sauntered casually down the sidewalk. Perhaps a little _too_ casually. But as he spotted an adult watching them as he exited his car, Eddy waved and grinned a little too wide, Edd and Ed following suit. Once the adult looked away, with a none-too-subtle eye roll, they hurried along, Eddy in front, Edd nervously following and looking all around, and Ed bringing up the rear, stumbling a bit due to the heavy-looking gym bag he had slung over his shoulder.

The trio headed towards the McGee house, speeding up once they had determined that they were not being followed, and ducked round the back, entering via the backyard instead of the front door. Eddy unlocked the door and slid it open, gesturing for the others to head in. Edd and Ed did so, and Eddy slunk in behind them, locking the door behind him.

He wiped a bead of sweat from his brow. "Phew! Made it, and nobody suspected a thing!"

"Well you are going into your own house, Eddy," Edd replied. "Hardly suspicious activity."

Eddy waved him off nonchalantly. "Whatever, Sockhead. Alright Ed, you can let her out now."

Ed nodded and put down the gym bag. No sooner had he unzipped it that a skinny arm reached out from inside, followed by another, and then followed by the rest of Sammie. Slightly battered and very dishevelled, she clambered out of the bag and flopped to the floor.

"Are you alright, Sammie?" Edd asked, kneeling down to help her up. "Apologies for the rather unorthodox transport."

Sammie took his outstretched hand and heaved herself up off the floor. "I'm okay, don't worry," she replied as she dusted herself off. "But I'd rather not do that again."

"Good thing my parents bought me such an oversized gym bag," Edd chuckled. "I finally find a good use for the silly thing."

Eddy picked up the bag and zipped it back up. "And good thing you didn't have anything in there either. I've been on the receiving end of Ed's gym bags plenty of times to know how much that can reek!"

"Ripened like a fine wine," Ed quipped with a chuckle.

"So then, Eddy, what was your big idea?" Edd asked, sitting down and removing his jacket on Eddy's king-sized bed.

In response, Eddy headed over to his walk-in closet and pulled open the door, revealing an altogether garish collection of clothes hung up on racks, folded on shelves and stuffed in drawers. Striped, polka dotted, rhinestoned, shiny, velvety, leopard-printed, and any other print or pattern that could be dreamt of. All in all, a wardrobe that would make the glitziest of glam-rockers cringe.

"You can't be serious."

"Come on in boys, and girl," Eddy added, nodding at Sammie. "Check out the goods!"

"What are we looking for, Eddy?" asked Ed as he rummaged through a drawer.

Eddy beckoned Sammie and Edd over. "Well, we want to be able to get our new friend here out and about without people noticing her ears, right? So all we gotta do is find something to either cover them up, or draw attention away from 'em!"

Edd recoiled as he extracted a silvery-white sequined jacket from a hanger. "Dare I ask what you have in mind?"

"Well you're not the only one of us with a whole collection of hats, sockhead," Eddy replied as he pulled back a curtain to reveal a niche filled with Styrofoam mannequin heads, each adorned with a different piece of headwear. "I just got a bit more variety than you."

Edd looked in awe at the vast collection. "That's… Not a bad idea, actually. If we find the right headwear, we can conceal her ears, and nobody would be any the wiser! Go on Sammie, take your pick."

Edd gestured for her to take a closer look, and Sammie approached the shelves, looking closely at each hat. "Wow… I get to pick one? Do I get to keep it!"

Eddy shrugged. "Sure, why not? They're just gathering dust in here otherwise, might as well let Double Dee's new squeeze have one."

Not noticing Edd glaring at Eddy, Sammie came to a stop at a brown fedora, with a small feather tucked into its band. "This is kinda nice."

"Try it out, see how you look," Eddy wheeled out a floor-length mirror for her.

Taking the hat from its stand, Sammie looked it over from every angle, before plopping it loosely onto her head. Sure enough, the wide brim served to flatten down her furry ears. She grinned at her reflection, a grin that quickly turned into a frown as her ears flicked back upright once more, launching the hat off her head and to the floor.

"This may be tougher than I thought," Edd muttered.

Indeed, as they went from hat to hat, none quite did the trick of concealing her ears. Anything stiff like a fedora, bowler hat or top hat would just be thrown off at the slightest twitch of Sammie's ears, which were also impossible to hide under anything like a beanie or a baseball cap.

"Nuts, nothing's working!" Eddy grumbled as he kicked a white stetson that lay discarded on the floor.

Edd shrugged. "It was a valiant effort, Eddy. Sammie and I appreciate the thought."

Sammie sat down on the floor, her back resting against a dresser. "So now what?"

Neither Edd nor Eddy spoke, both boys pondering any solution that could be found for this conundrum.

Ed, meanwhile, was still merrily rifling through Eddy's closet, when he discovered something, abandoned and left far in the back of a rack of coats and jackets.

"Hey guys, look! This coat has ears just like Sammie!"

He retrieved the article of clothing and half ran, half tripped his way to the others. "Look what I found guys!"

Eddy grimaced. "Oh geez, I forgot about that one…"

It was a dark brown fleece hoodie, it's colour faded and coated in dust. But what really caught the attention of the others were the two pointed cat-ears sticking up from the top of the hood.

Edd could not help but giggle. "Eddy, where on earth did you get this from?!"

Ed tossed the hoodie over to Sammie, who started dusting it off before putting it on.

"Uugh, my stupid brother," Eddy replied, cringing at the sight of the hoodie. "I had a phase where I tried to get into rave music, so I guess this was his way of making me 'look the part'. Don't think I've ever worn it, actually."

"Edd, look!" Sammie said, opening her arms. "It fits!"

Edd smiled. "So I see. Try putting the hood up."

She pulled it up, and sure enough, her real ears were virtually undetectable beneath the fleece ears of the hoodie. "How does it look?" Sammie asked.

Edd smiled. "You look very nice, Sammie. It really does conceal your ears quite well."

"What was that?" she asked, lowering her hood. "You sounded all muffled there."

"Ah right, yes," Edd facepalmed. "Hard for her to use her ears if they're covered up by fleece…"

"Wait! My brain just did a thing!"

Ed ran out of the closet into Eddy's room. While he was out of sight, the others could hear him opening and closing drawers. But before they could ask what he was up to, he returned, a large pair of scissors in his hand.

"Pardon me miss," he said as he went up to Sammie, held the ears of the hoodie in one hand, and chopped them both off with one snip.

"Ed!" Eddy cried, yanking him back. "What are you doing, you lummox?!"

"You ruined Sammie's new hoodie, Ed!" Edd exclaimed, rushing to her side to comfort her. But he stopped in his tracks as he saw a new pair of ears poking up from the hood.

"It's not ruined, look!" Ed pointed at Sammie's ears, sticking up through the holes he cut.

Sammie waggle her ears gleefully. "I can hear properly now! Thanks Ed."

Ed proudly twirled the scissors on his finger. "T'weren't nothin'."

Edd looked at the holes in the hoodie. By an amazing stroke of luck, the hoodie and Sammie's ears were relatively close in colour, so much so that, aside from the frayed edges of the holes, one could easily mistake them for being sewn onto the hood. "Why Ed, that was very clever of you! With a little stitching here and there, I can neaten this up and nobody will be the wiser!"

"You're welcome," Eddy said with a smirk. A smirk that quickly turned into a grimace as he was grabbed in one of Sammie's tight hugs.

"Thank you so much, Eddy, I love it!" she said joyfully.

"Uhh, no… No prob," Eddy wheezed, prying himself out of her grip.

"Well, with that, I think it's probably time that Sammie and I head home. It's probably going to be getting dark soon," Edd said, grabbing his coat from where he left it on the bed.

"Yeah, don't wanna run into any more grownups coming home from work or whatever," Eddy replied. "Besides, I think you two have a bit of planning to do, am I right?"

Edd looked at him quizzically. "Whatever do you mean?"

"Well now that you got something for her ears, Sammie's not so conspicuous now, right? Which means you don't have to keep her cooped up indoors now. And hey, tomorrow is a Saturday, so…"

"... So we can… Go outside! Edd, we can go outside!" Sammie grabbed Edd's hands and danced around the room with joy.

Eddy grinned. "Sounds like you guys have a date to arrange, hehe!"

Edd blushed as he let Sammie lead him in a mad dance around the room. "Well now, let's not get carried away, we still need to be careful about it. But, I suppose since we'll have a day off tomorrow, we could…"

But any further words were squeezed out of him by a ribcrushing hug from Sammie. "Oh Edd, thank you thank you thank you! I can't wait!"

"Go on then, you two get outta here already!" Eddy said, ushering the pair out the door, Sammie still clinging gleefully to Edd. "My dad will be home any minute!"

"Alright, fair enough. Well Eddy, Ed, I bid you gents goodnight."

"And thanks so much!" Sammie added. "For the hoodie, I mean."

Eddy waved to them as they headed out the back door. "No prob guys. Let me know later how your little trip goes tomorrow!"

"Goodnight, Double Dee and Sammie!" Ed called after them.

As Edd and Sammie hurried down the sidewalk, Sammie was practically dancing with barely-contained glee. Their need to get back inside before anybody saw them prevented Sammie from being able to properly look around, but just the feel of the fresh air on her face was enough to set her heart racing.

"Oh Edd, I can't wait!" She said as they walked. "I finally get a proper look at the outside!"

Edd smiled at her excitement. "It is a big day, that's for sure. But as I said before, we'll need to be extremely careful. I'll need you to keep your ears as still as possible, for starters. As far as anyone else is concerned, they're just attached to your hood."

Sammie nodded. "Got it. So where are we going then?"

Edd was silent a moment. He had not thought of that. "Hmm… Well, I think we'll want to avoid the cul-de-sac, just to keep the others from seeing you. I suppose we can go walk by the creek, through the woods. It should be pretty far from any prying eyes."

"That sounds great!"

Under cover of darkness, the pair were able to return home without anybody spotting them. It being almost 9pm already, Edd hardly felt up for making a proper meal, and so resorted to reheating a Tupperware full of spaghetti from the fridge, dining on it while Sammie sat in silence, her mind occupied by thoughts of the next day.

However, as they headed upstairs to retire for the night, and Edd got changed for bed in the bathroom, Sammie called to him from the bedroom where she changed.

"Hey Edd?"

"Yes, Sammie?" Edd replied, peeking his head out the bathroom door. "Is something the matter?"

"No, just a question," she replied. "What's a girlfriend?"

Edd barely stifled a squeak of surprise, ducking back in the bathroom. "... Wh…Why do you ask?"

"Earlier today, Eddy said something about you creating me to be your girlfriend. I got a bit excited about the idea, but I gotta admit I don't really know what the word means."

Edd gulped. As he slipped into his pyjamas he pondered her question. _Where's this going?_

"Well, erm… A girlfriend is a female acquaintance, obviously because a male would be a boyfriend… But anywho, it is a female acquaintance with whom one shares a particularly close relationship. One that is beyond a simple friendship, something more… intimate and affectionate."

Sammie chuckled. "You say those words like I have any idea what they mean."

Edd smiled as he exited the bathroom and headed for his bedroom. "Good point. Affection is… Difficult to explain. It's the things you do with the people you care about, to show them how much you care and make them feel good. Spending time together, holding hands, hugging… Kissing, that sort of thing."

He knocked on the door. "Are you dressed?"

"Yeah, you can come in."

He opened the door, depositing his day clothes in the laundry hamper on his way in. Sammie was sitting on the bed, opting for the nightdress tonight.

"And as for intimacy," he continued, "it refers to the act of being close to someone, both physically and emotionally. To have an intimate relationship with someone is to… Er, to do… Things with this person that you would not do with just anybody."

He slipped under the covers and lay down, and Sammie lay next to him.

"I think I understand," she said, laying on her side facing him. "So does everyone have a girlfriend or boyfriend then?"

Edd shook his head. "Oh no, not everyone. One has to find the right person just for them, whom they get along with well and care deeply for. Some people go a long time without finding a girlfriend or boyfriend. And there are those who are simply not interested in such things for whatever reason."

"Have you ever had a girlfriend?"

Edd blushed. _Just how much more personal is this going to get? _"I… I have not, no. There was a girl I know who would like to consider herself to be my girlfriend, but let us just say the feeling is _not_ mutual."

Sammie inched ever so slightly closer to Edd. "Do you want to have a girlfriend?"

A bead of sweat ran down Edds face. Sammie was a curious soul for sure, but this was something else. "Erm… I s-suppose it would be n-nice to have someone in my life that I can… I can share my thoughts with…

"But would I have the time for such things? Between my chores, my academic work, my friendship with Eddy and Ed, with you, my life is rather full already… And would anyone really be interested in me in that way?"

As Edd mused, he failed to notice just how close Sammie had gotten to him. Until, that is, he felt the weight of her head resting upon his shoulder. He glanced down in surprised and, if possible, blushed even deeper red. She was snuggled up against him, one of her arms resting gently across his chest.

Sammie looked up at his face with a smile. "I think there's someone."

With that, she nuzzled her face against his shoulder with a contented sigh. "Goodnight Edd."

As she drifted into sleep, Edd stared down at the sleeping form snuggling against him. He was not sure what struck him more: the fact that Sammie was being so affectionate with him, or the fact that, for the first time, he was not tense and rigid at the sensation.

Indeed, he was almost… Comfortable.

He smiled as he heard her tiny snores. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. It truly was incredible how comfortable the two of them had become in such a short time.

"Goodnight, Sammie."


	11. Chapter 11

Edd stirred awake as he heard the trilling of his alarm clock. As he reached over to turn it off, he stumbled slightly, feeling a weight on his side that he was growing altogether quite used to.

Looking to his side, he could not help but smile at the sight of Sammie, cuddled up on her side next to him, gently snoring away. Her ears twitched slightly, no doubt relating to whatever she was dreaming about. Ever so gently, he slipped himself out from under her arm and got up, stretching and yawning.

It was then that he heard a tapping from his window. And again, and again a third time.

"Hmm… What could that be?" He wondered aloud. "A poor fly or bee trapped inside, perhaps?"

But rather than a bee, the source of the tapping flew up from below and struck the window: a tiny pebble. And another, and another, until he at last opened his window, prepared to loudly admonish whomever was throwing the offending projectiles.

Only to duck as a much larger object came sailing through the air, in his window to land on the bedroom floor. It appeared to be a small unidentifiable bundle, wrapped in tinfoil. On the side, Edd could see a small slip of paper taped to it. Peeling off the paper, he read the text aloud.

"'Ed and I will keep the others distracted. You and your girlfriend enjoy yourselves, but not… too much'," Edd read aloud. Rolling his eyes, he continued reading, noticing the text becoming much messier and scribbly. "'And the burrito is for you, enjoy!'"

Edd looked again to the bundle which now rested on his workdesk. He unwrapped it and sure enough, it was indeed a breakfast burrito, in all its damp, greasy glory. Edd smiled. _No doubt this was Ed's idea._

"Well, I suppose we can save this for lunch," he said aloud to himself with a chuckle. "Well, this makes todays expedition a touch easier."

His musing was cut short as he heard a yawn from the bed behind him. Sammie at last was waking up as well, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

"Good morning, Sammie," Edd said.

"Good… Ooooh!" Sammie yawned again. "Good morning, Edd… Is it daytime already?"

"It is indeed," Edd replied. "And do you know what that means?"

She stretched. "Mmm… I means… It means…"

Her eyes then went from bleary and unfocused, to wide-eyed in realisation and excitement. "Is it time?!"

Edd nodded. "That it is, Sammie. Today is the day you finally get to go outside!"

Sammie was up and out of bed faster than Edd could blink, bouncing about like a cartoon character with a burning posterior and grinning like a maniac. "Oh Edd, it's today! It's today, we're finally going outside! We're going outside!"

Edd chuckled. "Slow down there, Sammie! We are going outside, but there's much to do first. For starters, I simply cannot start the day without a shower, and I must put together a hearty breakfast if we're to be spending all day outdoors…"

"Aww, can't we skip that and just go now?" Sammie said, playfully pouting with her hands on her hips.

"Out of the question," Edd said, shaking his head. "We all have our morning routines, and I cannot function without mine. But I promise, once that is taken care of, and we have prepared, we'll leave straight away."

Sammie squeaked with delight and grabbed Edd in a hug, swinging him around the room as she danced with excitement. At last she stopped, grinning sheepishly as she let go of Edd. "Oops, sorry, better let you go and get your shower."

"Th-that's quite alright," Edd replied, wobbling back and forth as he struggled to find his feet again.

As the warm water of the shower cascaded over his head and shoulders, Edd lathered up a loofah and scrubbed himself down. _Nothing like a morning shower to get one ready for a bright new day_.

But as he washed, he found himself thinking back to the previous night. In particular, Sammie's inquiry about girlfriends and intimacy, and most of all, her final question.

"_Do you want to have a girlfriend?"_

And then what she said afterwards, as she fell asleep.

"_I think there's someone…"_

Edd gulped. Her implications were becoming less and less implicit every day.

After his shower, he got dressed and returned to the bedroom, where he found Sammie already dressed and sitting on the bed, eagerly awaiting his return. She was clad in her pink dress and blue flares once more.

"Ah, nothing beats a refreshing shower in the morning," Edd said as he entered.

"I'll bet," Sammie replied. "I can't wait to try it myself, you make it sound amazing!"

Edd smiled. "Well I should teach you sometime, so you can try it for yourself."

The two of them headed downstairs as Edd prepared himself a bowl of porridge and a hot cup of tea. As he sat down at the table, he got out a small map of the Cul-de-sac and the surrounding Peach Creek area.

"Well, let's plan our route today then, shall we?"

Sammie nodded. "Good idea! So how are we gonna do this?"

"Well, thanks to Eddy and Ed, we can be assured that the other kids of the Cul-de-sac will be occupied, though I rather dread what Eddy may have in mind to distract them," he said with a mirthless chuckle. "So, as long as we get well out of the neighbourhood we should remain inconspicuous…"

"Inconspi-what now?" Sammie echoed, tilting her head.

Edd giggled. "Inconspicuous," he repeated, enunciating each syllable. "It means unseen, undetected, and that's our aim. Luckily there is a nice expanse of woodland just east of the Cul-de-sac where few people go, right next to the creek itself."

He pointed to a wooded area on the map, with a winding blue line that snaked through it. "This should make a fine area for us to explore. Does that sound good to you?"

Sammie nodded eagerly. "Ooh, yes! That sounds great, let's go!"

As she made to get up, Edd motioned to her. "Hey now, slow down! At least let me finish my breakfast first!"

"Uugh, well eat faster!" Sammie replied, sitting down with a giggle. "I'll even eat too if it means we're ready sooner!"

"I'm not so certain that's a good idea," Edd said, looking nervously at her.

Fortunately, Edd was finished within minutes, and after sipping down his tea and putting the dishes in the dishwasher, he put on his jacket as Sammie rushed upstairs to get the brown hoodie that Eddy had given her, her ears poking through the two holes cut in the hood.

Once she returned, she twirled on the spot. "This is my first time wearing this, so how do I look?"

Edd nodded. "Very nice. So Sammie, are you ready at long last to get out there and see the world we live in?"

She took a deep breath in and out, and nodded back. "Yep, let's go!"

Edd unlocked the door and pushed it open. He jumped as he felt Sammie's hand enclose itself in his, but clasped back.

Outside it was a crisp autumn Saturday morning. White clouds floated overhead, with the barest hint of grey tinge along their wispy edges. A gentle breeze blew browning leaves off the trees, to be crunched underfoot on the sidewalk and the green grass.

It was as plain and unremarkable a day as one could expect in an American suburb in autumn. But as Edd exited the house and turned to lock the door behind them, he could not help but smile at the look on Sammie's face. From the way her eyes had lit up, and her mouth hung open, one would think he had just shown her Eden or Shangri-La itself.

"Woah…" was all she could say. Still clinging tight to Edd's hand, she stepped slowly down the front walk from Edd's house, gazing about in wonder at the street around her.

"So," Edd asked, "What do you think?"

"... It's even better in the daylight."

"Just wait until you see the woods," he replied with a grin.

Edd gently tugged her along down the side of the house. "Come along, this way."

Cupping a hand to his ear, Edd nodded as he heard the familiar sounds of the rest of the neighbourhood kids. "Sounds like Eddy's diversionary tactics are working. If we head through the back alley we can make it to the woods unseen."

The pair skirted the outside of Edd's house, slipping down the passage between his house and the house nextdoor. They passed through a back gate into Edd's backyard and Edd began climbing over the picket-fence that separated his backyard from the woods behind the Cul-de-sac. As he straddled the fence, he reached down to Sammie, who took his hand again and hoisted herself none-too gracefully up and over the fence, to land on her front on the other side.

"Sammie! Are you okay?" Edd cried, lowering himself down from the fence.

She sat up, giggling as she picked leaves out of her hair. "Hehe, I think I need to work on my climbing."

And so the two of them set off into the forest, treading softly so as not to draw attention from any other kids who may be near enough to hear them. All the while, Sammie pointed about asking about just about everything they passed, like an eager child.

"And what's that? A tree, right?"

"Yes, that would be an ash tree, and a very healthy one at that."

"And this is a bush, right? It's like a tiny fat tree."

"Hehe, I suppose that is one way to look at it. Ooh, careful, best to avoid that plant."

"This hairy-looking one? Why?"

"That would be a nettle. They have tiny hairs on the leaves and stem that cause the most horrible stinging sensation if touched!"

"Oh wow, I'll stay away from that then! What about this one? It's really colourful."

"Those are wildflowers, _Gaillardia Pulchella_ to be precise."

"Ga… Ga-what now?"

"Heh, the more common name is the Blanket Flower, or the Firewheel, because of its fiery colour… Intriguing, they don't usually grow in this state."

Sammie knelt down next to the little flower, with its red petals and yellow tips. She gently ran a finger across the petals and giggled. "Ooh, It feels funny. I like this flower, it's got great colours."

Edd watched her examining the flower, gently poking and stroking it. _Go on, _he thought. _You know she'd love it._

"Ahem, well, w-would you like to take one with us?" he asked, kneeling beside her.

She looked to him with an excited smile. "Can we?!"

Edd nodded, and gently plucked one of the blanket flowers from the flowerbed. "Here you go," he said as he handed it to her.

Sammie's eyes sparkled as she gazed at the flower. "Thanks Edd! But, er… what do I do with it?"

"Why not put it in your hair?" Edd suggested. "Often people will use flowers to decorate their hair. Just tuck it gently behind your ear."

Sammie nodded and slid the stem of the flower through the hole in the hood, so that its head sat neatly by the base of her left ear. "Like this?"

But she received no answer, as Edd stared at her, captivated by the sight of the flower, its red petals standing out against her brown ear. "Hmm, wha-? Oh, yes, that's it, very nice, yes..."

She beamed. "Heh, thanks."

A moment of silence fell between the two, punctuated only by the distant sounds of the CUl-de-sac far behind them. Not a word passed between them, just as barely a thought passed through Edd's mind, as he looked at her smiling face.

At last, Edd cleared his throat, his mind jumpstarting once more. "Well, shall we press on?"

Getting up, he stepped over the small flowerbed, and Sammie followed closely behind.

"Now just up ahead is a very special part of this forest," Edd said. "Indeed, it's what gives our town of Peach Creek its name."

Sammie peered ahead through the trees. "Is it a peach tree?"

"Not quite, it's more to do with the latter half of the name."

As they passed under a low-hanging branch, Edd spread his arms wide to show off the sight. Sammie's face, if possible, lit up even more as she beheld the sight of a winding stream.

"Behold, the river that puts the Creek in Peach Creek!" Edd proclaimed.

Sammie looked in wonder at the flowing river that snaked through the trees. "Oh wow! So this is a river then… Is creek just another word for river?"

Edd nodded. "Indeed. Quite a sight, is it not?"

"It's awesome!" Sammie said, laying on her front to dip a hand in the flowing water. "It moves way faster than I thought rivers did. Where does it go?"

Edd shrugged. "To the ocean, I imagine. All rivers and streams eventually find their way to the coast, from whatever source it may have started with."

The pair of them sat down by the riverside, watching the water flow by. As the silent minutes passed, Edd once again found himself dwelling on the past few days. Hard to believe that one could form such a close bond with another person after knowing them for less than a week. Only a matter of days ago he had not even been aware of Sammie's existence. Indeed, only a matter of days ago, Sammie didn't exist, period!

And yet, here they were. Sharing the same home, sharing the same _bed_, and walking together in the woods like the greatest of friends.

_And maybe more than friends, _Edd thought to himself, _if Sammie's comments last night are any indication. _

Edd sighed. It was true. Despite his own efforts, it was becoming less and less easy to deny that Sammie was becoming increasingly affectionate with him. Now a hug here and there was just fine, even the occasional hand-holding. But how much further would she take it?

And should they take it any further? Exactly what Sammie was, was still a complete mystery. Was she even human? Would a relationship with her be considered… interspecies?

Edd shuddered at the thought. _Just what would the other kids think? What would Mother and Father think?!_

And then there was the most bizarre of facts about Sammie: That she was, somehow, a product of Edd's own mind. If that was the case, were her thoughts even her own? Were her thoughts just some sort of projection of his own mind?

_Who knows?_ He scratched his chin and frowned. _Perhaps she only has these feelings because, perhaps subconsciously, I wanted her to?_

"Hey Edd, look there! There's something moving in the water!"

Edd was shaken from his thoughts as he saw Sammie get up, pointing into the water of the creek. "What was that?" he asked, following her finger with his eyes.

But before she could answer he saw it. A long, dark shape that wriggled through the water against the current, sunlight glinting off its scaly skin.

"Oh my, I didn't know there were fish in the creek!" Edd exclaimed, peering excitedly at the fish under the water. "Well spotted, Sammie!"

His delight, however, turned to dread as Sammie inched closer to the bankside. "I think I can almost reach it… hold on…"

Edd leapt up. "Um Sammie, be careful! The riverbanks can be quite-"

A shriek of shock, the squeaking of rubber soles on wet grass, and a muddy splash was all Edd heard, as he recoiled back and shielded his eyes from the splash of mud.

He listened for the dreaded sound of screaming and splashing as Sammie thrashes about in the river, but it never came. He opened his fingers a crack, and breathed a sigh of relief as he peeked over the side of the riverbank and saw Sammie, halfway down the bank, dishevelled and battered and covered in mud, but otherwise unharmed.

"Sammie! Are you okay?"

"Heh, I'm fine," she replied, waving up at him. "I'm sorry, I just wanted to get a closer look at the fish."

Edd rolled his eyes. "That's quite alright, let's just get you back up here."

Sammie reached up a mud-splattered hand, and Edd grabbed it, with some hesitation. After a few minutes of heaving and slipping, Sammie was back up on the grass, absolutely filthy and damp with muck, but no worse for wear.

"And I think that's a good opportunity for us to head home, yes?" Edd said.

Sammie nodded. "Yeah, I think I've experienced enough of the outside for today, heheh."

And so the pair headed back the way they came, through the woods, over the fence and through the backyard and back into Edd's house.

"Hold it!" Edd cried before Sammie could take so much as a single step off the doormat. "Mother and Father would have an absolute fit if we were to drip mud on the carpet."

Hurrying to the kitchen, he grabbed a roll of kitchen roll and hurried back. "Here, this should help get rid of the majority of the mud."

"Thanks."

Sammie was able to get the wettest of the mud off her with a bit of scrubbing, but her arms, legs and face were still scuffed and stained.

"I'll make sure to get your clothes in the next laundry run," Edd said as he held out a wastebin for the used kitchen rolls. "You're not hurt are you? You took quite a fall."

Sammie rubbed the back of her neck. "I think so. It kinda feels bad back here, but otherwise I'm fine. How does it look?"

She held up the back of her hair, exposing the back of her neck. Edd took a look and grimaced at the dark bruise starting to form at the back of her neck. "You have a slight contusion between your shoulderblades, but nothing serious. it should fade within a day or two."

"That's good… What's a contusion, though?"

"It's when a blood vessel bursts under the skin, causing a dark marking. It's nothing dangerous, it'll heal before long," Edd explained.

Sammie nodded, though her face clearly showed that she was less than reassured.

"Well, we best get you cleaned up properly," He said as he put away the wastebin.

"Ooh, can I try having a shower?!"

Edd sighed. It was only a matter of time. "I suppose that's probably the best solution."

Sammie jumped up and down with glee. "Yay! Well, lead the way teacher, let's get me showered!"

Edd held up his hands. "Well hold on a moment! I'll tell you how, but I'm not going to wash you."

"Why not?" she asked. "Do people not do that?"

Edd blushed, rubbing his head sheepishly. "Erm… Well, some people maybe, but typically those in a very… _very_ close relationship. Normally one showers on their own."

"Oh, okay I gotcha. So, shall we then?"

Edd gestured sheepishly upstairs. "I suppose so.."

With an excited giggle, Sammie hurried upstairs, with Edd trailing behind. Edd stopped by his room on the way. "Now we'll definitely have to wash your clothes, so you should probably pick out something else to change into."

Sammie nodded and hurried over to where her clothes were neatly stacked, and picked out her purple hoodie and a pair of jean shorts. "WIll this do?"

Edd nodded. "Indeed. And we have fresh linen in the bathroom, so I suppose we're all set."

He opened the door to the bathroom and beckoned Sammie in, turning on the shower to get the hot water running. "So, first step is to disrobe."

"Meaning?"

Edd blushed, very pointedly looking away. "To… you know, remove your clothing."

"Oh right," Sammie replied. "You mean all of it?"

Edd nodded. "Just let me, erm… let me go over here…"

He quickly hurried to a far corner of the room, by the sink, and covered his eyes. "Alright, go ahead. Just… just leave your clothes in the basket by the door."

_Oh goodness, this is really happening_. Even with his eyes closed, he could hear the sound of clothing falling into the laundry hamper.

"Okay, so now what?"

"S-so now, you get into the shower cubicle," Edd replied, gesturing in the vague direction of the shower. "And if you c-can pull the curtain closed, I'd greatly appreciate it."

"Sure thing," Sammie called over the sound of the running water. "Is the curtain important?"

Edd nodded. "Yes, it helps keep the water in the shower, and… well, it also allows you your privacy, so I can't see you."

"What for?" she asked, as Edd heard the reassuring sound of the curtain runner sliding. "Don't you want to see me?"

_Oh this will be positively awkward. _"Well… While I would normally have no objections, I'd rather not see you while you're… undressed. It's, uh, inappropriate."

"Why?" she asked.

"Erm… That is, seeing one another n-naked is… is best saved for those already in a deep intimate relationship. That and, the nude human form makes me… uncomfortable."

"Huh…" Came Sammie's reply. "Okay… Well I'm behind the curtain now, so I guess it's safe."

Edd cracked his eyes open, and breathed a sigh of relief as he saw that the shower curtain was, indeed, in place obscuring the cubicle. But the breath was caught in his throat as Sammie moved behind it and he saw her very naked silhouette moving behind it.

He whipped around to face the wall, his face blushing red as a tomato. _Oh be still, my poor frantic heart!_

"Okay, so I'm undressed, I'm in the shower, the water is running, what next?" asked Sammie.

"Well, erm…" Edd struggled to get his train of thought back on the rails. "N-now you need to start washing yourself. T-take the bottle of soap from the little platform next to the tap, and squeeze some of that onto the loofah, that's the soft cylindrical item next to it…"

"Where? There's just a bottle here."

Edd facepalmed. _Of course, I disposed of that one because it was wearing out. _"Okay, one moment, I'll get a new one."

He made sure to not turn to face the shower as he sidestepped to the cabinet, and retrieved a fresh loofah. Inching his feet across the tiled floor, he made his way over to the shower, still facing towards the far wall. "Here you go, I'm just outside the curtain."

"Hold on, I got some water in my eyes, I can't see… you might need to pass it to me."

Edd grimaced. _Oh please no… _"O-okay, but stay behind the curtain please, just reach out an arm."

The shower curtain slid aside slightly, and Edd felt his entire body tense up as Sammie peeked around the side of the curtain, thankfully exposing nothing below her shoulders. She squinted through half-closed eyes and grasped at thin air a few times, before finally grabbing the loofah and retreating back behind the curtain with a smile. "Thanks Edd."

"You're welcome," Edd squeaked as he quickly moved away from the shower. "So as I said, squeeze some of the gel in the bottle onto the loofah and use that to scrub yourself clean. Pay close attention to anywhere that got particularly messy in your little fall."

"I'm really sorry about that by the way," she replied, a twinge of guilt in her voice. "I know you probably wanted to show me more of outside, but I kinda ruined that when I fell…"

"Oh no, no, think nothing of it!" Edd replied, his hands raised. "I couldn't very well keep dragging you around the woods while you're soaked and covered in mud. What kind of friend would I be then?"

Sammie giggled. "Well, I think you're a very good friend."

Edd could not help but smile as those words warmed his heart. "Why, thank you."

"So I clean myself all over with this stuff?"

"That's right," Edd replied. "Then you simply rinse it off under the water, and if you like, repeat again until you're all clean. I usually lather and rinse at least twice."

"Well then, I guess I will too."

After a few moments of audible scrubbing, Sammie's hand peeked from behind the curtain. "Hey Edd, can you help me out for a bit? There's a spot on my back I can't quite reach."

Edd blushed even harder, if at all possible. "Erm… are you sure you can't reach it?"

"I tried, but I can't reach it from any angle."

Edd gulped. "O-okay, if you can pull the curtain aside. J-just… just turn to face the taps, if you please."

The curtain was pulled aside, and Edd almost felt his entire body freeze up as he saw her facing the wall, her ears drooping under the weight of the water, her normally swept up hair clinging to the back of her neck and shoulders. He kept his eyes firmly set on the back of her neck. _Do not look any lower, do not look any lower, do not look any lower…_

She passed the loofah over her shoulder to him. "Th-thank you… s-so where is it you can't r-reach?"

She pointed to a spot between her shoulderblades. "Just below there."

Edd very firmly looked away as he touched the loofah to her back. "H-here?"

"A bit lower."

He moved the loofah down her back a touch.

"Lower…"

He moved it down again.

"There, right there!"

Edd nodded, silently thanking whatever higher power may be watching over him that she did not simply keep urging him lower and lower down her back. "I-is this alright? Not too hard?" he asked, making gentle circles with the loofah.

Sammie shook her head. "Nope, that's just right… Heh, that's… mmm, that's really nice, actually."

Edd felt his face burning as the blood rushed to his cheeks. He could feel Sammie squirming slightly under his touch. _Oh good heavens no… please don't tell me she's finding this… pleasurable?_

It was gentle, almost inaudible with the sound of the shower, but every now and then as Edd scrubbed her back, Sammie let out a little sigh or squeak. Mercifully not moaning or gasping, much to Edd's relief, but she certainly seemed to be enjoying it.

"Aahh, I think I might start showering more often, if it feels this nice," Sammie muttered, as she started to tilt her head back.

_Alright, that is quite enough!_ "Y-yes well, I think in future you may need to wash yourself," Edd replied as he put the loofah on the ledge by the shower gel and returned to his spot outside of the cubicle.

Hastily he grabbed a fresh towel from the linen closet and draped it over the curtain railing. "I-I have to take care of something, so I'll leave you to finish off. Wh-when you're done just turn the knob on the wall to the left until the water stops, and dry yourself off with the towel. J-just scrub yourself like you did with the loofah until there's no more water."

"Okay, and what about clothes?"

"Well it's nearly evening now, so I suppose if you like you can get into your sleepwear now. I'll lay them out for you on the bed and get started on dinner," Edd called as he made a swift exit.

Closing the bathroom door behind himself, Edd breathed a sigh of relief. _Now to make some dinner, and take my mind off of what just happened…_

Moments later, Edd was downstairs in the kitchen, putting together a nice, light salad and cheese sandwich. Even with all their walking and exploring, he found himself not nearly as hungry as he had anticipated. Most likely a side effect of their rather risque moment in the bathroom.

"Still," he said aloud to himself, "That little outing seemed to go well, at least up until her fall. Perhaps getting her out and about to see the world will run more smoothly than I feared. Perhaps, we could even spend time with Eddy and Ed as well, now that would be fun!"

His musings were cut short as he heard the bathroom door opening and closing and Sammie's voice calling from the upstairs landing. "All done in there! Have you nearly finished dinner?"

"Indeed, come on down when you're-"

Without thinking, Edd looked up at her, and immediately looked back down. Thankfully Sammie was wrapped in the towel he had given her, but he silently cursed his lack of foresight. _You should have left the pyjamas in the bathroom for her, you fool!_

Sammie smiled obliviously at him. "Great, I'll get my nightdress on and be right down!"

"Sp-splendid," Edd stammered.

_This girl is going to give me a heart attack._


End file.
